A magnificent sight at the peak of his form

The term 'match-fixing' will, for the purposes of the inquiry, be defined in three ways.

They are:

1. Instances where an individual player or a group of players receives money individually or collectively to under-perform.

2. Instances were a player places bets in matches in which he plays with the intention of under-performing or having other players under-perform.

3. Instances where a player passes on information about team composition, team morale, pitch condition, weather conditions and probable result etc for monetary gain.

Record breaker

Lara, from Trinidad, was among eight non-Indian players, past and present, named in the report.

The Edgbaston scoreboard marks Lara's feat

The others include Hansie Cronje, who has already been banned for life by South Africa, England's Alec Stewart and Australian Mark Waugh.

The International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption Unit, headed by Sir Paul Condon, is also conducting an inquiry into the allegations.

Lara enjoyed a golden year in 1994 - setting new world records with a Test score of 375 against England in Antigua and an innings of 501 while playing for Warwickshire.

He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time and has so far scored 6,438 runs in 79 Test appearances, with 15 hundreds, as well as 6,897 runs in 183 one-day internationals.

Lara gave up the West Indies captaincy in February last year after a series of poor results away from home.

He returned to the team for last summer's tour of England and was their leading run-scorer in the winter Test series in Australia.