Cricket: Here's why NZ are not implicated in match-fixing

By CHRIS LAIDLAW

There must be something in the water on the Indian subcontinent that induces everyone to bet their shirt on the outcome of a cricket match.

"Everyone" is possibly an exaggeration, but even if a billion don't, that leaves an awful lot who do.

The sheer scale of the betting business that has imploded within cricket is awe-inspiring.

Half the gross national product of India seems to be circulating through cricket's betting shops and there is hardly an international player on the subcontinent who isn't implicated directly or indirectly.

The lengths to which some of the bigger punters will go to organise the result are staggering.

Although it is clearly being driven from India and Pakistan, it has permeated the game like the computer Love Bug, leaving a trail of devastation and a whole lot of lingering doubts about the legitimacy of this result or that in the recent past.

With skeleton after skeleton tumbling out of the closet, the entire international game has been seen to be infected by the virus.

Hanse Cronje is probably only a minor participant in all this even if, as seems likely, he received a good deal more for, shall we say, an educated guess at the outcome of one or two games than is being admitted.

The fact that even the South African captain has been fingered implies that every cricket nation is in it up to bail height.

Now it is abundantly clear that the ICC has been pitchforked out of a long, self-satisfied slumber in its rotting leather armchair and obliged to act.

The big question is, what does it do? Cricket can't control the betting business any more than it can control the weather.

It can't tap the telephones of all its players and pounce on anyone who sounds as if they are taking a backhander. All it can really do is wave about written codes of conduct and hope for the best.

The only institutions who can act are governments and there are signs that some governments now feel obliged to act because of the negative imagery associated with the besmirching of this most gentlemanly of games in their country.

We can expect to see heavy financial penalties for those caught trying to manipulate the results of matches as disincentives to try it on. There may even be an outlawing of all betting on cricket other than through government-controlled agencies.

In other words, a gigantic, international cricketing TAB, with some of the profits ploughed back into the game. A tempting thought that.

How badly has the disease infected New Zealand? There have been rumours and insinuations for some time and there is no doubt that offers have been made by shadowy subcontinental gentlemen to a number of players.

But the Black Caps have a wonderful natural immunity to such infection.

As chairman John Anderson cryptically put it on his return from the ICC meeting, the New Zealand team have an infinite capacity to lose matches without any artificial incentives and lack the means to conjure up a win specially for the big punters.

Perhaps that is why the manipulators have not shown much interest in this country. Needless to say the alarm bells would ring if New Zealand suddenly started winning and the ICC sleuths would be here in force.

Sometimes you just can't win.