With the dust yet to settle on the spot-fixing controversy involving Pakistani players, The Sunday Times of London today reported that the International Cricketing Council (ICC) had prepared a secret dossier stating that 29 cricketers were under the scanner for “spot-fixing” during the second edition of IPL.

This list of players includes “some high-profile names, but none from England or Pakistan”, The Sunday Times reported. Players of the two countries had stayed out of IPL II due to security concerns, also the reason for the tournament eventually moving to South Africa. According to the report, the list of 29 includes two Australians.

While there have been fears of the Indian Premier League matches coming under the influence of bookies, including those expressed by former chief of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) Paul Condon, there has been no credible proof of involvement of players — most of whom earned more money playing in the IPL than they perhaps ever hoped

Incidentally, the ACSU was not involved in the second edition of the IPL after talks between the BCCI and ICC broke down over fees to be paid to officers of the anti-corruption unit.

There was no clarification from the ICC after The Sunday Times report, which said the 29 were under the scanner of the ACSU, but top bosses at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) questioned the allegations.

“I never got any report, nor have they informed me. This issue is completely untrue,” BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan told The Indian Express. BCCI’s Chief Administrative Officer Prof Ratnakar Shetty said: “I haven’t heard of this.”

Another top BCCI official accused “everyone” of wanting to drag the IPL into a spot-fixing scandal. “These reports are uncalled for. It seems everyone is hell bent on getting the IPL into the whole fixing muddle. If the ICC had such a dossier and suspected so many players of fixing matches, why didn’t they inform the board for so long? I think it’s nothing more than convenient timing,” the official said.

Cricket Australia (CA) too said neither it nor the ICC had no knowledge of involvement of any Australian players. CA spokesperson Peter Young claimed the ICC had contacted them offering assurances it had no knowledge of improper conduct by Australian players. “It’s news to us and it’s news to the ICC,” Young said.

After the first IPL in 2008, Condon had warned that “the IPL brings with it the biggest threat in terms of corruption in the game since the days of cricket in Sharjah”.

In a presentation to the ICC Executive Board last year about IPL 2009, he had expressed concerns about the easy access people had to players.

The tournament had seen Bangalore Royal Challengers beat Deccan Chargers in the final. Both teams had finished at the bottom of the table in the inaugural edition of the IPL.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Spot-fixing-shadow--over-IPL-II-now--report-talks-of-a-list-of-29/680840