Did you hear the one about the international captain allegedly under investigation for corruption at cricket’s World Cup? You probably didn’t. And if by chance you did, you may have assumed the story was a couple of decades old.
Alas, no. As recently as February, Canada’s captain Dilpreet Bajwa brought himself on to bowl his off-breaks in the fifth over of his side’s Group D T20 match against New Zealand at Chennai. He began with a no-ball, and soon followed that with a wide. According to the ball-by-ball commentary on ESPNcricinfo, it was ‘another poor delivery, bowled wayyy down leg’.
In all, his over cost 15 – and it is this over which a new documentary, Corruption, Crime and Cricket, produced by Canadian investigative broadcasters The Fifth Estate, claims is under scrutiny.
The ICC, the game’s global governing body, say they are aware of the allegations, but don’t comment on individual cases.
The documentary also includes claims from the former coach of the Canadian team, Khurram Chohan, that he was put under pressure to pick certain players.
In the days since the programme was broadcast, the Indian media has been full of stories about Canadian cricket’s alleged links to shady characters on the subcontinent, where it is illegal to bet on anything other than horse-racing.
Canada’s captain Dilpreet Bajwa bowled an over at the World Cup that went for 15 runs – and it is this over which a new documentary, Corruption, Crime and Cricket, produced by Canadian investigative broadcasters The Fifth Estate, claims is under scrutiny
India won the T20 World Cup on home soil, beating New Zealand in the final
Recent estimates place the value of India’s illegal gambling market at over $100 billion. Of that, cricket generates probably 80-90 per cent. Whatever the precise figures, it is a vast market, uncontrollable in its scale.
The sport should not console itself with Canada’s cricketing obscurity. The fact that the incident under investigation took place at a World Cup is in itself a reminder that cricket has never fully come to terms with the match-fixing whispers that at various moments have threatened to strip it of credibility.
Then there’s Canada’s growing franchise scene, with Bajwa representing Montreal Royal Tigers in the 10-over-a-side Super 60 in October. The temptation is to dismiss such enterprises as irrelevant, but his team-mates included Nottinghamshire’s Tom Moores, Middlesex’s Ryan Higgins and Hampshire’s Brad Currie.
This not to imply any wrongdoing – simply to point out that, these days, off-season county cricketers take their pay cheques where they can, and some of these leagues are better regulated than others. And this is where cricket needs to be careful.
Around the turn of the century, the big match-fixing stories concerned high-profile international cricketers, including South Africa’s apparently unimpeachable captain Hansie Cronje, as well as India’s Mohammad Azharuddin and Pakistan’s Salim Malik.
Cronje died in a plane crash in 2002, while the life bans for Azharuddin and Malik were later lifted. But the stench of the era never went away, and the onset of T20 franchise cricket opened up potential new avenues for the fixers, even while the ICC’s anti-corruption unit appeared to get to grips with corruption in the international game.
In recent years, any charges laid by the ACU have tended to involve lesser-known players and lower-level matches. And that is where the ICC’s attempts to grow the game are not without complications.
Around the turn of the century, the big match-fixing stories concerned high-profile cricketers, including South Africa’s apparently unimpeachable captain Hansie Cronje
Bajwa bowls against New Zealand in Chennai during the World Cup
Canada were one of 20 teams at the recent T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, making it cricket’s joint-biggest global event yet, along with its predecessor in the USA and the Caribbean in 2024. But there is now so much cricket played at franchise level, so much private money swilling around, so many operatives on the lookout for a profit, that it is increasingly hard for global administrators to monitor every spit and cough.
Even before this year’s tournament, Canada’s cricketers were said to have received prize money from the 2024 World Cup only belatedly. The Fifth Estate documentary, meanwhile, raises questions about the game’s links to organised crime, with one former player claiming he was threatened.
With its multiple discrete moments – a T20 match contains up to 240 individual deliveries, a 50-over match as many as 600 – and potential for spot-fixing, whereby the outcome of sections of a match can generate its own odds, cricket has long been vulnerable.
The suggestion that a World Cup game is now in the spotlight is a reminder that it must remain on its guard.
