BCCI plays waiting game
10 Oct 2012 7:11 AM IST
BCCI on Tuesday said it would wait for ICC to complete its investigations on the television sting operation on umpires who were allegedly willing to fix T20 matches for money. A day after a news channel beamed its programme purportedly showing umpires willing to fix matches, BCCI said since no Indian umpire was involved, it would wait for the ICC probe to be completed.
‘ICC has to take a call on it. They [ICC] will take appropriate action. As far as we are concerned we will take action as we deem fit. Our job is to keep the game clean. The BCCI takes strong and immediate action whenever such cases come up,’ senior BCCI official Rajeev Shukla said.
Meanwhile, India TV will soon hand over the videos to ICC for its investigations.The channel showed video clips purportedly taken by their undercover reporters in which the umpires were shown to be allegedly willing to give certain decisions in exchange for money. The six umpires, who were shown in the TV sting operation willing to fix matches, are Nadeem Ghauri and Anees Siddiqui of Pakistan, Nadir Shah of Bangladesh and Gamini Dissanayake, Maurice Winston and Sagara Gallage of Sri Lanka. Ghauri and Shah have officiated at the international level while the other four were first class umpires.
Soon after the sting operation was beamed on Monday night, the ICC said it would investigate the matter and asked the channel to give any information which can assist in the probe. ‘ICC and its relevant members have been made aware of the allegations made by India TV this evening and calls on the station to turnover any information which can assist ICC’s urgent investigations into this matter,’ the world body said in a statement.
‘ICC re-iterates its zero-tolerance towards corruption whether alleged against players or officials. ICC confirms that none of the umpires named were involved in any of the official games of ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka,’ ICC said, adding that ‘it will not make any further comment on this issue.’
Rajat Sharma, chairman and editor-in chief of the channel, stood by its expose and said it was open to any inquiry or public scrutiny of their journalistic work if the authenticity of the tapes is in question. The fact that the umpires were willing to do a ‘criminal’ thing is unfair to cricket, he said.
IT ALL STARTED WITH IPL: DARRELL HAIR
Former ICC elite panel umpire Darrell Hair is not at all surprised by the allegations of fixing against match officials, and said such rumours started doing rounds since the birth of the cash-rich IPL. Hair’s statement came after ICC launched an ‘urgent investigation’ into the claims made by India TV that several umpires were willing to fix matches for money in the just-concluded ICC World T20 and SPL.
‘I was wondering how long it would take before some umpire did some stupid things. There have been rumours going around for ages, since IPL started, that umpires were involved,’ Hair was quoted as saying on Tuesday. ‘It all comes down to two things: opportunity and greed. If you’re the type of person and you’re given the opportunity, the greedy part of you will say, ‘Yeah, I’m in’. In my whole career, there had always been word that certain umpires were on the take here or there,’ added Hair, who retired in 2008 after an illustrious career spanning 16 years.
‘But to be fair, the guys I umpired with at international level were all pretty much above board. But I don’t doubt that there have been others around, probably in a lesser environment, trying to make a quick buck,’ Hair said.
Hair also came hard on ICC and said he had little faith in the body defeating corruption in the game. ‘ICC are completely reactive in their way of doing things. They say they don’t have legal powers like the police to tap phones and that sort of things, but I don’t buy that. I reckon the ICC should be above any law if they want to tap phones to ensure that the game is clean,’ Hair said.
‘ICC has to take a call on it. They [ICC] will take appropriate action. As far as we are concerned we will take action as we deem fit. Our job is to keep the game clean. The BCCI takes strong and immediate action whenever such cases come up,’ senior BCCI official Rajeev Shukla said.
Meanwhile, India TV will soon hand over the videos to ICC for its investigations.The channel showed video clips purportedly taken by their undercover reporters in which the umpires were shown to be allegedly willing to give certain decisions in exchange for money. The six umpires, who were shown in the TV sting operation willing to fix matches, are Nadeem Ghauri and Anees Siddiqui of Pakistan, Nadir Shah of Bangladesh and Gamini Dissanayake, Maurice Winston and Sagara Gallage of Sri Lanka. Ghauri and Shah have officiated at the international level while the other four were first class umpires.
Soon after the sting operation was beamed on Monday night, the ICC said it would investigate the matter and asked the channel to give any information which can assist in the probe. ‘ICC and its relevant members have been made aware of the allegations made by India TV this evening and calls on the station to turnover any information which can assist ICC’s urgent investigations into this matter,’ the world body said in a statement.
‘ICC re-iterates its zero-tolerance towards corruption whether alleged against players or officials. ICC confirms that none of the umpires named were involved in any of the official games of ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka,’ ICC said, adding that ‘it will not make any further comment on this issue.’
Rajat Sharma, chairman and editor-in chief of the channel, stood by its expose and said it was open to any inquiry or public scrutiny of their journalistic work if the authenticity of the tapes is in question. The fact that the umpires were willing to do a ‘criminal’ thing is unfair to cricket, he said.
IT ALL STARTED WITH IPL: DARRELL HAIR
Former ICC elite panel umpire Darrell Hair is not at all surprised by the allegations of fixing against match officials, and said such rumours started doing rounds since the birth of the cash-rich IPL. Hair’s statement came after ICC launched an ‘urgent investigation’ into the claims made by India TV that several umpires were willing to fix matches for money in the just-concluded ICC World T20 and SPL.
‘I was wondering how long it would take before some umpire did some stupid things. There have been rumours going around for ages, since IPL started, that umpires were involved,’ Hair was quoted as saying on Tuesday. ‘It all comes down to two things: opportunity and greed. If you’re the type of person and you’re given the opportunity, the greedy part of you will say, ‘Yeah, I’m in’. In my whole career, there had always been word that certain umpires were on the take here or there,’ added Hair, who retired in 2008 after an illustrious career spanning 16 years.
‘But to be fair, the guys I umpired with at international level were all pretty much above board. But I don’t doubt that there have been others around, probably in a lesser environment, trying to make a quick buck,’ Hair said.
Hair also came hard on ICC and said he had little faith in the body defeating corruption in the game. ‘ICC are completely reactive in their way of doing things. They say they don’t have legal powers like the police to tap phones and that sort of things, but I don’t buy that. I reckon the ICC should be above any law if they want to tap phones to ensure that the game is clean,’ Hair said.
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