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| |  Wednesday, 23 May, 2001, 13:04 GMT 14:04 UK Guilty secrets remain  Sir Paul Condon's "robust investigation" continues The Condon match-fixing report has been published, but BBC Sport's Rob Bonnet thinks cricket still has a long way to go to clean up its tarnished image. Sir Paul Condon's report on Corruption in International Cricket dropped at 6.00am sharp onto the ICC's website. By 6.05am the "BBC Breakfast" printer was churning its way through the 75 pages, and by 6.10am we were on the air trying to make sense of it. It wasn't too difficult. Sir Paul's interim report has a clarity and confidence that draws on his experience as a Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It sets out in logical sequence the history and culture of match-fixing, deals with the more recent enquiries in South Africa and the Indian sub-continent and moves forward to a set of 24 recommendations for the game's improvement. The independence of his investigation is key and will allow him to continue to deal robustly with all aspects of his enquiry. If there are still cricketers out there with guilty secrets, their confidence in the possibility of escape will be more fragile today than before. Much the same applies to administrators, who through either negligence, ignorance or complicity have played their part in the scandal. Sir Paul pulls no punches on this. The ICC, he says, "could and should have done more to deal with the problem of corruption at an earlier stage". He has rightly identified the flaw that fundamentally weakens the structure - and therefore the powers and the will - of the ICC. This "loose and fragile alliance" of nations must continue to evolve into "a modern regulatory body", a transformation which he says will strengthen its "moral and actual authority to deal with corruption". Cricket was run until recently as a kind of old fashioned private international club inclined to the old fashioned view that blanket denial of unwelcome allegations and riding their storm had greater long-term value than investigation, exposure and the inevitable negative publicity.
This was highlighted when the Australian Cricket Board swept the Mark Waugh/Shane Warne bookmaking contacts under the carpet for four years in the mid-1990s. Those days, thankfully, are gone. A decent international framework for cricket, plus money for security measures and education and awareness programmes form the basis for Sir Paul's recommendations and they can help regain the game's integrity as much as the life bans handed down to Cronje, Azharuddin and Malik. The English dimension, meanwhile, focuses on Alec Stewart, who gets a brief mention in the report as someone to whom Sir Paul is waiting to talk. That's not news but indicates that Sir Paul has certainly not closed the book on allegations that Stewart was offered or even took money from the Indian bookmaker MK Gupta - even if the ECB has. The Board's chairman Lord McLaurin was unequivocally supportive of Stewart when I spoke to him on "BBC Breakfast" some 90 minutes after the report's publication. Stewart has denied all the allegations and has satisfied the ECB that he is innocent. All fans of English cricket (and I count myself amongst them) want to believe him with the same intensity as Lord MacLaurin.
But the sad legacy of Cronje is that every player - however bright and shiny his public image - must now endure public cynicism in precisely the same, sad way that gold medal winners or world record holders in athletics or swimming are automatically suspected of taking drugs. That is why Stewart will have to go through the mill with Sir Paul Condon, who is an experienced, impartial and intellectually ruthless investigator. I made a point of asking Lord MacLaurin whether he thought his own reputation stood or fell with that of Stewart's. He said he didn't think so, but I believe his full-square stance alongside Stewart means it does. If England's temporary captain is cleared by the Condon enquiry then both men will continue to be regarded as honest, open and trustworthy servants of the English game. Their leadership and integrity will remain highly valued and furthermore, Lord MacLaurin will be greatly admired for his judgement of character and his steadiness under pressure. The reverse, however, is unthinkable. | |
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