A major bribes scandal erupted after England had trounced Pakistan in a lopsided One-day International at Trent Bridge in 1992. Former Pakistan pace bowler Sarfraz Nawaz, who had also played for Northamptonshire in the English championship, was in no doubt that the match was rigged.
Without publicly revealing any known incriminating facts, Sarfraz boomed: ‘Pakistani players were bribed!’ And he caused even greater mayhem by alleging that several other international matches involving Pakistan had also been fixed over the previous 14 years.
Having been a vital member of the side right through those controversial years, it was highly likely that he knew precisely whether match-fixing or spot-fixing had taken place, but he clearly felt that it was not his duty to name the guilty ones, no matter how much he might have hated what he witnessed, but that it was for the Pakistan Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council, and even the police, to investigate.
Sarfraz also claimed to have received death threats in late 2010 because of his persistent fight against cricket corruption in Pakistan, and he lodged a complaint with the police in the capital Islamabad. He claimed the threats came shortly after he had stated that he had known for some time that certain Pakistan players would be involved in spot-fixing in England in 2010, which was highlighted by three players being banned in a major scandal after a newspaper sting that exposed the deliberate bowling of no-balls in a Test match at Lord’s.
Sarfraz told the police that, while he was walking in a park in Islamabad, two men shouted at him from behind that he should stop giving public statements about match-fixing by Pakistan cricketers, and threatened to kill him if he turned round and looked at them.
He said: ‘I have lodged a report with the police and they are investigating. I have never cared for these threats. I will continue my fight against the corruption, and I am ready to contribute in efforts to free our beloved game from all such corruption. Pakistan cricket has suffered badly, and the only way to eradicate this malpractice is to take stringent measures, otherwise it will continue to haunt us.’
After he retired from cricket in 1984, the frank and fearless Sarfraz had set out to climb the tricky political ladder as a member of parliament, and had become an outspoken sports adviser to the Government, always doing his utmost to assure the nation’s fair-minded people that he was on a mission to root out corruption in cricket, and to urge heavier penalties to deter the cheats.
Sarfraz announced that the country’s Secret Service was trawling through the bank accounts of leading Pakistan cricketers in a meticulous and concerted operation to secure enough evidence to nail the guilty men.
After winning the toss, Pakistan asked England to bat in that controversial 1992 Trent Bridge contest, and then suffered absolute humiliation in the field as they conceded a massive 363 runs in the allotted 55 overs, the highest team score, or total, in One-day games between the two countries.
Robin Smith hammered 77 runs in 72 balls, while Neil Fairbrother (62) and Graeme Hick (63) also helped to destroy a bowling attack that included Mushtaq Ahmed (0-58), Wasim Akram (1-55), Aaquib Javed (2-55) and Waqar Younis (4-73). Pakistan used seven bowlers in total.
Pakistan began badly in reply when star opener Rameez Raja was dismissed without scoring, caught by Graham Gooch off the bowling of Phillip DeFreitas, and were shot out for just 165 in 46.1 overs, with skipper Salim Malik hitting his side’s top score of 45. DeFreitas took 3-33 in his allotted 11 overs, and Ray Illingworth 3-34.
Sarfraz was a pioneer of reverse-swing bowling, and in one Test match in Melbourne he dismissed seven startled Australian batsmen for just one run off 33 immaculate deliveries. In a career that lasted from 1969 to 1984, Sarfraz played in 55 Test matches and 45 One-day matches for Pakistan.
One of cricket’s most fascinating scams, which is perpetrated at all levels of the game, from a village green ‘friendly’ to international Test matches, takes place even before the first ball is bowled.
Suspicion grew on the Test match circuit in the late eighties that cheating had become so bad that certain captains were even fixing the toss of the coin while they stood in the middle preparing to decide which side would bat or bowl first.
Officials were urged to be more vigilant and a blacklist of names was reportedly drawn up of those suspected of pulling off the sting. Eventually it became an important part of the match referee’s duties to accompany both captains to the middle and to look closely when the coin was spun in the air, and even more closely when it hit the ground.
Captains who cheated this way had mastered the conjuring skills of TV magician Paul Daniels, so that when the coin came down as ‘tails’ they would scoop it up and claim that it was ‘heads’. To ‘win’ the toss by these foul means enabled the successful captain not only to ensure that his team had the best of the day’s playing conditions, but even more importantly for his gambling accomplice to land a whopping bet for predicting which of the two skippers would call correctly.
The best exponents of coin-fixing will flip the coin in a particular way so that it wobbles rather than spins, and by watching it closely the captain can tell whether it is going to be heads or tails before it finally hits the ground in front of him.
Magician Gary Kosnitzky produced a booklet in which he teaches how the toss of a coin can be controlled, and there is every chance of it proving more profitable for a captain to spend more time practising this at the expense of honing batting and bowling skills.
Officials at the ICC have admitted that their investigators uncovered evidence of bets being placed on captains calling the toss correctly, and even bets on the number of players who would wear sunglasses, caps or sweaters before and after lunch.
British bookmaker William Hill might be many thousands of miles away from where a Test match is taking place, but its security team is always watching closely for cricket cheats. Secret systems are in place to detect a crooked bet and, although the company is in serious competition with other major UK bookmakers (such as Coral, Ladbrokes and Stan James), messages are instantly flashed to one another when a dodgy cricket bet is suspected.
William Hill’s spokesman Joe Brilly stressed: ‘In terms of security, there is nothing more important than for all of us to stay in contact, because if one of us is caught up in a cricket betting scandal, it would do the industry enormous damage and have our names in the headlines.
‘Cricket is one of our top earners, behind horse-racing and football, and we operate online to more than 100 countries. We must be on guard every minute of the day. Illegal betting in India and Pakistan has been linked to cricket scandals in a big way, but we have no outlets in those countries because they have laws against gambling, though we do take online cricket bets from clients in both those countries.
‘We also take in-play bets like “who will be the next batsman out” but we don’t offer odds on wides or no-balls being bowled by a particular player at a specific time, which was the central issue in the scandal involving certain Pakistan players at Lord’s.
‘Every person who works in our UK betting shops has been trained on what clues to look out for when punters put their money down. You can imagine the suspicion a stranger would create if he walked through the door and wanted to bet anything from £1,000 to £10,000 on a Test match batsman or bowler doing something specific at a specific moment in the match.
‘We do take bets on the Indian Premier League despite all the talk of cheating, and we do good business on it. In a case like that, we put our trust and confidence in our security office, and our online security systems which pick up on anything that might look fishy. There are cheats everywhere, not only in world cricket, who might think that bookmakers are an easy target, so it’s important that we don’t drop our guard. We need to be sure at all times that no one places an online bet with us unless we have that person’s account number and bank account details.’
Gamblers and fraudsters will try every trick imaginable to beat the bookmaker, and the one that was tried in a Liverpool betting shop some years ago has no equal. The bookmaker couldn’t believe his eyes when, standing behind his counter, he suddenly saw the name of a horse gradually appearing on a betting slip in the tray in front of him.
It had been written in invisible ink, and as the writing became stronger, the bookmaker could read the name of the horse that had already won the 1.30pm race at 50-1. Within a minute, the word ‘double’ had also appeared. The bet was time-stamped 1.40pm, so the slippery punter had written the name of the winner once it had passed the post. But this was the bookmaker’s lucky day, as he was there to see it all happening. Moments later the bogus betting slip would have been buried under many others, and the brazen cheat would have walked off with a wad of dirty money.
Don Topley first came to the notice of British cricket fans when he was hastily brought on as a substitute fielder for England against the West Indies at Lord’s in 1984. Young Topley was a member of the MCC ground staff, and lived with 15 other talented and ambitious cricketers in a north London hostel. Every day during the summer months he attended the nearby indoor school, alongside the Nursery ground at Lord’s, for specialised coaching.
When an England player was injured and had to leave the field during that Lord’s Test, a message was swiftly sent to the Nursery ground for someone to hurry to the main pavilion to be kitted out in an England sweater, and then to go straight on the field as a substitute and face the 20,000 spectators and millions more watching on television.
Malcolm Marshall was at the crease on that day in 1984 and he hit the ball with tremendous force, high in the air, towards the boundary where substitute Topley was fielding. As he saw the ball rocketing towards him, Topley dived to one side, thrust out a hand, and incredibly caught it close to the ground.
Spectators went wild with delight – until television replays showed that Topley had accidentally put a foot over the boundary rope as his hand grabbed the ball, and his ‘catch of the season’ had to be disallowed. There was considerable consolation, as the name Don Topley was now very much in the public domain and, though not a star cricketer, his fleeting moment of brilliance had left a favourable image.
Little was seen or heard of him after that stunning moment of glory until around ten years later when the name Don Topley hit the headlines again, just as suddenly as it had done before, though this time for all the wrong reasons.
Topley had long left the MCC ground staff and was now playing as a professional for Essex as a medium-pace bowler and middle-order batsman, and was generally referred to as a ‘journeyman’ cricketer, which usually means being dependable without being something special.
In addition to his skills as a cricketer, Topley had always come across as someone who was deeply conscientious and honest, and he proved this to be the case when he stepped forward to claim that a crucial championship match had been fixed – which left the game’s rulers seething.
Topley alleged that a deal had been done to allow Essex’s opponents, Lancashire, to win their Sunday match at Old Trafford on 25 August 1991. In return, Lancashire would make it easier for Essex to win their half-completed three-day match, which would strengthen their bid for the championship.
As it happened, Essex did win the championship match, collecting 21 points to secure the title and picked up £44,000 in prize money. Lancashire were just as pleased when they beat Essex by five wickets on the Sunday, and although it didn’t take them to the top, it guaranteed second place and £13,000.
One national newspaper correspondent, completely unaware of Topley’s allegation, wrote that he could not understand why Lancashire’s captain Neil Fairbrother had asked Essex to score 270 runs to win on an excellent pitch, and with a modest bowling attack. Topley has always remained adamant that what he claimed at the time was wholly true, and has admitted to being ‘ashamed’ of his bowling in the One-day match, which was so bad that even one of the umpires told him it was ‘awful’. Topley confessed: ‘I had to keep telling myself that winning a Sunday match wasn’t that important, but I didn’t like what was going on.’
Guy Lovell, who usually bowled for the Essex second team, was promoted to first-team duty at the last minute to replace the experienced England spinner Peter Such, and he totally backed up what Topley had alleged.
‘It was in the pavilion around lunchtime on Sunday,’ said Lovell, ‘after coach Keith Fletcher and secretary Peter Edwards had left the room that someone came in and announced: “We have done a deal. If we lose today, we will win the three-day game tomorrow.” I was shocked, but I didn’t protest, and our senior players didn’t seem fazed. I was told to keep my mouth closed, and not to tell any official, or bet on the result.
‘It is true that Don Topley began to bowl some very bad balls – wides – that gave the batsmen an easy job. I gathered that at one point one of the umpires even remarked how bad he [Topley] was.’
Former England all-rounder Derek Pringle, who captained Essex in the Sunday match, later said he was ‘surprised’ at Topley’s claims, but he had no further comment to make. Neil Foster, acting captain, denied any knowledge of a private arrangement between the two clubs, and said: ‘Any such thought would have been completely contrary to my feelings for the game.’
Team captains have always preferred to set up a contrived finish to a championship match in order to get a positive result rather than end three, and subsequently four, days of hard competition with a drab draw. Spectators in the main would also rather be ‘entertained’, even if it meant that players who rarely bowled in a match came into the attack and lobbed up juicy long hops and full tosses.
Genuine cricket fans, of course, loathe contrived finishes. I fully understand why, and I support them. Although a contrived finish does not strictly come under the heading of ‘cheating’, it could, nevertheless, have a serious knock-on effect on other clubs who might be challenging for the championship, or battling to avoid relegation, and could be a gift for gamblers or bookmakers if information about a contrived finish got into their hands.
The greatest danger would come from clubs doing a reciprocal deal, which Topley highlighted so effectively. Most championship cricket grounds now have at least one onsite betting shop which, along with the mobile phone, makes it simple for punters to place bets at all times during the hours of play.
Contrived results might be fine to keep bored spectators interested, but in truth this practice brings with it far too much scope for deliberate wrongdoing, and the England and Wales Cricket Board might be wise to recognise the potential dangers and make a statement to stop it before the game is hit with another unnecessary scandal.
Many years after Topley had retired from professional cricket to be a physical education teacher at a boarding school, another Essex pace bowler, Mervyn Westfield, was charged in May 2010 with conspiracy to defraud after being arrested on allegations of match-fixing in a One-day Pro-40 match against Durham.
Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Antony Swift said: ‘I advised that Mervyn Westfield should be charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud for intentionally playing other than to the best of his ability, contrary to his contractual obligations.
‘It is alleged that he dishonestly agreed to bowl his first over to allow the scoring of a certain number of runs in a match between Durham and Essex on 5 September 2009. I have made this decision after careful consideration of a file of evidence from Essex police. There is sufficient evidence to prosecute Mr Westfield, and it is in the public interest to do so.’
Old Bailey judge Justice Saunders told Westfield in March 2011 that he would stand trial over two weeks in January 2012. He was granted legal aid.
Westfield wasted no time in pleading guilty to a charge of corruption when he appeared at the Old Bailey on 12 January 2012. He also admitted that he had accepted £6,000 to concede a specific number of runs in his first over for Essex against Durham in a televised Pro-40 match on 5 September 2009.
Judge Anthony Morris told the court that he understood Westfield had agreed to give away 12 runs in the 40-over contest, though only ten were scored. Westfield was accused of breaking the 1906 Prevention of Corruption Act by being paid to ‘bowl in a manner calculated, and intended, to allow the scoring of runs’. He denied a separate charge of breaching the 2005 Gambling Act by assisting another person to cheat and, though this allegation was not dealt with, the judge ordered that it should remain on file. The judge also assured the court that people in cricket would know the person who had offered Westfield the money, and that he would be identified at a later date.
Pakistan’s veteran leg-spinner Danish Kaneria, an Essex overseas player since 2005, was also arrested in this case, but released without charge. He left the club and returned home to Pakistan.
Westfield admitted that he had received ‘numerous approaches’ to concede runs and fix matches in return for money, the first of them in a Pro-40 fixture against Somerset in 2009. He was granted unconditional bail until he returned to court to be sentenced on 12 February. This sudden admission of guilt was a complete U-turn, as Westfield had emphatically denied that he had accepted the money when first questioned by police.
The prosecution conceded that Westfield had changed his mind to plead guilty in mid-December. Ominously, the judge warned: ‘I hold out no promises to you as to the eventual outcome of this case. It is open to the court to pass an immediate custodial sentence.’ Westfield conceded a total of 60 runs in his seven overs in the controversial Durham match which Essex went on to win comfortably by seven wickets.
The short hearing lasted long enough for the court to be told that pace bowler Tony Palladino, a close friend of Westfield in the Essex team, had advised club officials that his errant colleague had admitted accepting money for ‘fixing’. Palladino, who later moved to Derbyshire County Cricket Club, was not required to give evidence as the prosecution’s principal witness, as Westfield had entered a guilty plea.
Optimistic officials at the England and Wales Cricket Board launched an immediate three-month amnesty in which they called on players to report any approaches they might have experienced, with a solemn promise that no one would be punished. Chris Watts, the ECB’s new anti-corruption chief, stressed: ‘Information is critical in addressing the threat posed by corruption in sport. Individuals might have thought these approaches were not worthy of reporting and, prior to the Board’s decision, might have been concerned that, as they did not report such activity [at the time], it could have put them at risk of disciplinary action.’
Westfield was jailed for four months when he returned to the High Court on 12 February, though he was cheered slightly when told that he would be eligible for release after just two months.
Further drama erupted when Westfield’s barrister detailed allegations against his former Essex playing colleague Kaneria, saying that he acted as a go-between in the bowling scam. It was also claimed that Kaneria had approached other Essex players about similar match-fixing opportunities. Judge Anthony Morris told Westfield: ‘I am satisfied that you would have known from the outset that what was being offered was a corrupt payment, and that you could, and should, have rejected it. I am also satisfied that if you had any concerns about the approaches being made to you, that you had an opportunity to mention them to the team captain or management. Or, if you were nervous of doing so, at least to your friends within the team, but you chose not to do so.’
The judge revealed that the person who made the corrupt payment had used the information to influence either a foreign legal betting market, or an illegal one in the UK, or overseas. He continued: ‘The criminality here is that for financial gain you betrayed the trust placed in you to perform honestly and to the best of your ability. You were trusted to do so by other members of your team, your employers, the supporters of Essex County Cricket Club, and very many followers of the game throughout the world.
‘If, because of corrupt payments, it cannot be guaranteed that every player will perform to the best of his ability, the reality is that the enjoyment of many millions of people who watch the game around the world, whether on television, or at cricket grounds, will be destroyed. Your [guilty] plea was entered very late. You denied knowledge, and lied to the police. I have grave doubts about whether you are truly remorseful for what has happened.’
At one point, the judge told the court: ‘It is difficult to accept his [Westfield’s] total remorse, shame and regret… The defendant has lied on a number of occasions about his involvement in this matter.’
When Westfield’s barrister Mark Milliken-Smith said that his client hadn’t received anti-corruption training, the judge jumped in again, this time sarcastically querying, ‘Did he really need training and education to realise this was a plainly corrupt approach?’ Milliken-Smith replied: ‘No.’
It was further claimed that Kaneria, who first joined Essex in 2005, was due to pocket £4,000 for himself, as a personal share of the scam. Milliken-Smith told the court: ‘It is clear, we submit, that Kaneria and his associates targeted Mr. Westfield.’ He alleged that several Essex players had repeatedly ‘turned a blind eye’ to conversations instigated by Kaniera about spot-fixing, which they dismissed as banter. It was disclosed that attitudes of players changed only after the Professional Cricketers’ Association, their highly respected union, instructed its members to report anything they believed was suspicious.
Shortly before Westfield was sentenced, the ECB confirmed that it had banned the disgraced bowler from all cricket with immediate effect pending further investigations. The court also heard that the ICC had warned Kaneria in 2008 that he was keeping ‘highly inappropriate company’, yet there was no apparent record that the game’s governing body had confidentially warned Essex County Cricket Club of its profound concern about this relationship.
By keeping its lips hermetically sealed the ICC denied Essex the opportunity to question Kaneria, kick him out if necessary, or even monitor him closely, which could well have prevented this appalling scandal that has further tarnished the integrity of professional cricket. The ICC stands charged of allowing avoidable circumstances to flourish, which concluded with a young cricketer being ‘seduced’, jailed, totally banned from the game, and branded a criminal for life. Yet again the ICC preferred to bury its head in the proverbial sand that engulfs its Dubai headquarters.
Since returning home, Kaneria has bowled his leg-spinners for Habib Bank in Pakistan’s premier league. In a highly successful international career he played in 61 Test matches, taking 261 wickets. His last Test appearance was in 2010.
Essex sacked Westfield shortly after the police had interviewed him, although the club insisted that it had taken this action because the player had not fulfilled his potential, and it made no mention of the match-fixing allegations.
Club coach Paul Grayson said: ‘It is a huge disappointment that it has come to this. For the past few years we had high hopes for Mervyn to become a big name in cricket. He has received a lot of guidance from our players and coaches, but he has not progressed as we had hoped.’ Westfield was born in Romford, Essex, in May 1988, and played in seven championship matches and eight One-day games, and bagged a total of 11 wickets.
Sussex and England fast bowler James Kirtley was furious when players from opposing teams labelled him a ‘cheat’ for the way in which he released the ball, claiming that he broke the rules by throwing it, and branded him a ‘chucker’. So much fuss blew up that the ECB was forced to call in experts in 2005 to decide whether Kirtley’s unusual bowling action came within the laws of the game, and he feared that he could be kicked out.
When I spoke to him for a Sunday tabloid about his harrowing experience, he said: ‘I was feeling absolutely terrific after taking six wickets in a Test match for the England A team in New Zealand until someone came up and ruined it all, claiming that I had been reported for throwing. It knocked the stuffing out of me, and my immediate thoughts were that my career would soon be over, especially as the New Zealand Cricket Board had become involved, and I knew that I would have to be cleared by an ECB panel.
‘Certain people had decided to knock me personally, and to take credit away from what I had done. I obviously realised that what they were doing could put me out of the game, but Mike Gatting, our manager, and Martin Moxon, our coach, were fantastic. They stressed that I had to stay positive, and they assured me that I was technically sound, and not to worry. I had played in 100 first-class matches up to then, and nothing like this had happened before. I was sure it was people who didn’t like it when the heat was turned up.’
Kirtley returned home from that tour after taking 19 first-class wickets, and went straight into a career-threatening ECB inquiry that had been arranged to study his bowling action in minute detail. Slowly and deliberately, Kirtley recalled those anxious moments: ‘I was filmed from all angles while bowling at different speeds, and I knew that my future was on the line. Even though Mike Gatting had told me that I’d be fine, I still had butterflies in my stomach.
‘I knew there was no way that I could relax until the ECB had announced that my action had passed the test and was legal, which they did. To be honest, even though I knew I wasn’t a chucker, and that I had been completely cleared, I was still sure that certain people would continue to point a finger at me. So it was up to me to stay strong, and shut it out of my mind, and get on with my game.’
It was a solid and positive statement from Kirtley, whose spirits were brilliantly boosted a few months later when he flew off to help spearhead England’s bowling attack on a tour of Zimbabwe. Sadly it did not turn out as well as he had hoped. What had promised to be a stress-free tour disintegrated into panic and doubt as his controversial bowling action was again questioned and reported.
After an impressive two-wicket debut in the first One-day International, match referee Colonel Naushad Ali reported Kirtley’s action to the ICC. It also emerged through a mischievous leak – maybe from one of those ‘certain people’ Kirtley had referred to – that a first-class umpire had reported him in the English championship in the previous summer.
For reasons exclusively known to itself, the ECB had chosen to keep this incident totally under wraps, as well as the umpire’s identity, and it prompted a storm of protest from the media, which condemned it as a ‘cover-up’.
To Kirtley’s credit, he refused to capitulate under persistent whispering by players and officials at other clubs, and he worked tirelessly to adjust his action with specialist help from the ECB and continued to bowl successfully for Sussex right up to his retirement in September 2010, at the age of 35.
In his troubled, stop-start career, Kirtley still took more than 600 first-class wickets and a total of 19 in his four Test matches, which led his Sussex cricket manager, Mark Robinson, to shower him with praise, saying: ‘The dedication and sacrifices that James Kirtley made for his career were a constant source of inspiration and an example to any player fortunate enough to play alongside him. He will go down as one of the all-time greats of Sussex cricket.’