da bet sport： Maybe there was nothing in it
Rick Eyre09-May-2001Maybe there was nothing in it. Or maybe it was a sign that the shadow ofmatch-fixing still looms heavy upon the world of cricket. Or maybe it wassomething in between. Whatever the significance, it was enough for AustralianCricket Board chief executive Malcolm Speed to tell the world yesterday thatsomeone suspicious had been telephoning members of the Australian team inIndia in March.Speed told a media conference in Melbourne on Tuesday that three members ofthe Australian touring party – wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist, bowler ColinMiller, and coach John Buchanan – received telephone calls in their hotelrooms in Chennai during the Third Test in March from a man seekinginformation about the pitch, the state of the match and its likely outcome.Nothing else is known about the man, except that, according to Gilchrist, hewas “of Indian descent”. In all three instances, which took place on thefinal morning of the Test before the team left their hotel for the ground,the Australians immediately terminated their phone calls.Australian tour manager Steve Bernard was informed of the suspicious callsand asked the remaining members of the squad if they had been approached inthe same fashion. None of them said they had.Australia began that day’s play leading by 131 with three second inningswickets in hand. They lost their last three wickets for the addition of 23runs. India needed 155 to win and did so with just two wickets to spare,winning the series by two Tests to one.Following the incident, the ACB notified the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit.Malcolm Speed said yesterday that the Board of Control for Cricket in Indiahad also been notified at the time as a matter of courtesy, however lastnight BCCI secretary Jaywant Lele told reporters that this was the first timehe had heard about it.As no allegations of illegal conduct by the mystery caller have been putforward, there is no police investigation.Whether or not there was really anything untoward in these telephone calls issomething we will probably never know. What this incident does show is thedegree of caution that is being exercised by, and indeed expected from,international cricketers today, and how the ACB – stung badly by its handlingof the Warne/Waugh episode in 1994 – is bending over backwards to show theworld its committment to fighting corruption, even with seemingly trivialincidents such as these.