Australia calls for independent review on corruption

Cricket Australia has called on the ICC to commission an independent review on corruption in the sport, in the wake of the allegations of spot-fixing by some Pakistan players. The ICC has started a review of the game's existing anti-corruption measures but the CA chief executive, James Sutherland, wants a worldwide investigation to be run independent of the ICC.

There have been a number of inquiries in the past, including the Condon report in 2001, Qayyum in Pakistan in from 1998-2000, Australia's O'Regan report in 1999 and the King Commission in South Africa in 2000. However, Sutherland questioned the longevity of such investigations, given the changing nature of cricket and society.

"There were a whole lot of recommendations that came through from that," Sutherland said on Cricket Australia's website. "How many of those recommendations have been put in place, are they absolutely relevant to this day and age? The world has changed a lot in ten years. We're in far more of a digital age to where we were before.

"All of those things need to be assessed and I don't think it's appropriate for them to be assessed by some internal person. I think a highly-credentialed external expert could do a full-blown review around the world - the time is right for that."

In the days that followed this year's spot-fixing allegations, Malik Mohammad Qayyum, the retired High Court judge in charge of the Pakistan inquiry that led to Salim Malik being banned for life, complained that his findings in the late 1990s were not fully implemented. One of his recommendations was for players' assets to be examined annually, a process that had not been implemented.

Sutherland said he was "shocked and saddened" to hear of the reports that Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif had deliberately bowled no-balls for financial gain during the Lord's Test against England. However, he said it could be a good thing that cricket administrators would now be forced to act on corruption in the game.

"If these charges are proven, we find ourselves in a position where we've got clear evidence of international cricket having been corrupted," Sutherland said. "That in itself, I actually see that as a positive, that it comes out on the table and is clear. It's positive in a sense that we can't deny it - we have to face the facts.

"With that on the table we can - 'we' being cricket administrators around the world and the ICC - can take a serious look at the processes and the controls and the education we've put in place in the last few years, where they may have fallen down, where there are ways in which we can improve that."