NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Enquiry ordered into Australian cricket graft

Australian cricket authorities bowed to public pressure today and ordered an independent enquiry into links between members of the national team and Indian bookmakers.

Earlier this week, the Australian Cricket Board shocked the nation by admitting it had tried to hush up fines it imposed on two top players for taking money from an Indian bookmaker in 1994.

Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, the game's highest-paid stars, were disciplined in February 1995 -- the same month they alleged that Salim Malik, then Pakistan captain, offered each of them US $ 20,000 to lose matches on the 1994 Pakistan tour.

But ACB chairman Dennis Rogers said the Warne-Waugh affair was closed. ''That case has been heard,'' Rogers told Australia's ABC radio. ''That's over. That's finished. We're not reopening that.''

But calls for tougher punishments for Warne and Waugh, both millionaires, are unlikely to go away.

The pair were fined just A $ 18,000 (US $ 11,340) and allowed to keep the A $ 11,000 they pocketed from the Indian bookmaker. They claimed the money was for weather reports and a description of the state of the wicket.

The ACB's decision to order an enquiry was also a response to howls of derision from the international cricketing world over the secret tribunal for Warne and Waugh.

Pakistan Cricket Board chief Khalid Mahmood said the ACB was wrong to try and cover up the scandal in a bid to keep two of Australia's best players in the game.

The ACB has in the past been deeply critical of cricket authorities in India and Pakistan over the alleged involvement of bookmakers in match-fixing.

But Australian fans appear to have turned against their former idols. When Mark Waugh walked on to the Adelaide oval to face England's bowlers he was roundly booed by sections of the crowd.

Waugh made just 7.

Warne, who is recovering from a shoulder injury, is not in the national team, but he has already felt the wrath of the sporting world.

The Mirror has sacked Warne as a columnist. The leg-spinner will not write on this year's Ashes series for the British newspaper.

Twenty five first-class cricketers contracted by the ACB will give evidence to an outside appointee.

EXTERNAL LINKS:
R Mohan in the Age
Who are the balding men at the helm?
How the scandal was covered up