Thaindian News

London, May 25 (IANS) England Test skipper Andrew Struass questioned the resolve of cricket administrators to tackle match fixing, calling the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) anti-corruption body “woefully under-resourced”.

Strauss was leading the side during last summer’s Lord’s Test against Pakistan when a News of the World sting claimed that three Pakistan cricketers, the captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, were involved in deliberately bowling no-balls in return for money.

The three players deny any wrongdoing. The trio were banned by the ICC and are due to appear in a court in London in July charged with cheating and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments.

Strauss feels that cricket administrators are not spending enough money to tackle corruption.

“Clearly most of the betting seems to go on in the sub-continent but I wouldn’t say it was just sub-continental players that are involved,” Strauss was quoted as saying in London Evening Standard.

Strauss said there is more to match fixing than what meets the eye.

“My gut feeling is there is more to it than we know about. It is a very difficult thing to deal with but I don’t think that’s an excuse not to try to deal with it. I haven’t seen any resolve to deal with the issue. It is hard for me to comment because I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.

“The only input I’ve had is with the anti-corruption people who came round during the World Cup. It seems to me that they are woefully under resourced. I just don’t think they’ve got the resources to do it properly.”

Strauss also confirmed that England came close to not playing last year’s one-day international at Lord’s against Pakistan. The day before the match, Ijaz Butt, the head of Pakistan cricket, alleged England players had also taken money from sub-continental bookmakers to throw matches.

“I was quite emotional myself about it,” recalls Strauss. “My original view was our integrity had been brought into question. We got quite close to not playing the one-dayer at Lords. But over the course of the evening it became a lot clearer to me that actually the right thing to do was to play.

“We didn’t feel overjoyed to be playing the game or that series but we got through it. I am still hopeful that good will come out of it. But they certainly don’t seem to be getting anywhere nearer to the bottom of the whole spot fixing/match-fixing saga.”