The fix that wasn't

The story of Pakistan’s tour of England in the summer of 2010 would have made good reading as a thriller. Intrigue, infamy, cash in suitcases, back-stabbing, even a bit of sex thanks to Veena Malik the buxom former girlfriend of Mohammad Asif having her say, and finally court-room drama. Salman Butt, the Pakistan captain, Asif and Mohammad Amir, the two fast bowlers, and Mazhar Majeed, the fixer, were each sentenced to prison for their part in bowling no-balls to order in the fourth Test at Lord’s in August of that year. The four men, who all blamed one another for the crime, had been charged with conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat at gambling.
It was considered a disastrous day for cricket. Aftab Jafferjee, QC for the prosecution, said: “This case reveals a depressing tale of rampant corruption at the heart of international cricket”. He added that the extent of fraud made it hard for spectators to watch matches “without a sense of disquiet”. It was, however, considered a great day for investigative journalism. The Pakistan cricketers and Majeed, who claimed to be their agent, had been exposed by a News of the World reporter. Hidden cameras showed Majeed talking to an undercover journalist called Mazher Mahmood, perhaps best known as the ‘Fake Sheikh’ who had a habit of embarrassing public figures, including the former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, in sting operations.
Majeed was seen to propose three no-balls during the Lord’s Test, two to be bowled by Amir and one by Asif. For this information he was paid £150,000. The video shows Majeed taking bundles of cash from a suitcase and counting it, rifling the £50 notes through his fingers. Majeed said that Butt would do his bidding. Amir, just 18 at the time, bowled two no-balls, one by nine inches and the other by 12 inches. These were huge and conspicuous, betraying his inexperience – and possibly his fear. Asif, a veteran of Test cricket since 2005 and with a bowling action as smooth as honey falling from a spoon, stepped over the line by a fraction.
When it became clear that the News of the World had their men by the throat, Colin Myler, the newspaper’s editor, summoned the cricket correspondent Sam Peters, and Richie Benaud, a columnist of almost 54 years, to the Wapping offices.
“Tomorrow, gentleman,” Myler said. “The News of the World is going to break the biggest story in its history”.
“Caught!” screamed the headline under a “world exclusive” banner. “Match-fixer pockets £150k as he rigs the England Test at Lord’s”. And also “We expose betting scandal that will rock cricket”.
Indeed, cricket was unsteady on its feet for many months afterwards and it is arguable that it had still not righted itself when jail terms were handed down to the four fixers. Butt received two years and six months, Asif one year, Amir six months and Majeed two years and eight months. Myler was right. The story that had everything was a best-seller.
But did it really have everything? The answer is, unquestionably, no. In the backstreets of every Indian city from Nimbahera to Mumbai, in outbuildings or bedrooms of crumbling apartments, from Vinay to Parthiv, never above the jabber of the bhao line operator and the echo of punters placing bets, did a bookmaker cry “souda fok!” – all bets are off, it’s a fix – when Amir or Asif bowled those no-balls. When they overstepped the line at Lord’s to spark the crisis that the ICC called the biggest scandal to hit the sport since the Hansie Cronje affair, there was no meltdown by India’s bookmakers. There was no panic on the streets of Lucknow. In other words, there was no betting scam. There was no spot-fix.
It is the great irony of this tale. A story purported to be the latest in a litany of match-fixing scandals in the sport, to be placed on a par with the Cronje crime and, for the first time, see cricketers convicted in a court of law, was far from removed from the illegal Indian market where the ‘fix’ supposedly had its roots.
“Maybe the monies had gone elsewhere,” Parthiv said. “But having read the News of the World report, it seemed clear to me they had been scammed.”
Recordings by the newspaper showing Mazhar Majeed, a Croydon-based businessman, predicting when the no-balls would be bowled would appear proof of match-fixing or spot-fixing to the layman. But to anyone with a semblance of betting knowledge it was anything but. The News of the World spent £150,000 and failed to get a bet on. The money paid was for Majeed to prove that he could control the Pakistan players.
Amid the media storm, not once was the question asked: if the newspaper had wanted to make money betting on the Indian market on those no-balls, could it have done so? We know the answer to this. Parthiv, Vinay and Rattan Mehta, the Delhi punter of renowned infamy, have each confirmed that it is not possible to bet on the timing of a no-ball. Dheeraj Dixit, our ‘fixer’ friend from the suburbs of Delhi, and MA Ganapathy, the author of the CBI report in match-fixing published in 2000, did the same.
Yet it was convenient for the media to ignore this point. It would have spoiled the story otherwise. Today if you type into the internet search engine Google ‘Pakistan Lord’s Betting Scam’, 1,840,000 results are returned, including stories from the BBC, Daily Telegraph, Sky – organisations one might consider bastions of accurate, diligent journalism. Instead, it was preferable to portray Indian bookmakers as crafty, money-grabbing crime lords who would not raise so much as an eyebrow if someone attempted to place a bet on a no-ball. The contradiction is glaring. The fallacy laughable.
The illegal Indian market is a monster. It is vast. It is unregulated. But it is structured and it is certainly not complacent. Remember that there are only four main markets available to gamblers in India and all bookmakers sign up for those odds provided by the syndicates.
“Do you think we’re fools?” Vinay said to me. “If someone says they want this no-ball bet for big monies I’m Ladbrokes in London. I tell them to go away. No bookmaker in the world takes this bet.”
One does not need to be connected to Indian bookmakers to understand this. It is common sense. If you, the reader, were to walk into any betting shop on the high street and ask for £1,000 on an outcome as specific as a no-ball in a Test match, the cashier would say “wait a minute, please” and disappear to make a telephone call to head office. Upon his or her return she would tell you that they could not accept the wager. “It’s not our policy”, would be the bluff. The real reason would be that they suspected you had inside information. It is no different in India.
But let us suspend reality for a moment and consider a fantasy world where there had been a betting market for the News of the World journalist to exploit; to get his bet on and ensure that his story truly was a betting scam. How hard would it have been? The phrase “needle in a haystack” is apt.
The News of the World would have had to have found a multitude of Indian bookmakers, operating outside of the syndicate system. These are the small-time bookies Vinay spoke of. The ones who accept wagers of no more than 25,000 rupees (£306) on the regular match odds, brackets, innings runs and lunchtime favourite markets but also occasionally on ‘who will win the toss’, how many runs Tendulkar will score. Not, however, no-balls to be bowled at a specific time.
They are a discordant bunch. They are not structured. They are not connected to one another. And, most importantly, they do not have the safety net of the syndicate if their losses get too great. They are far less likely than the high-street bookmaker to take ‘requested’ wagers.
With that in mind, for the News of the World to break even from their £150,000 outlay, the minimum a fixer would expect, they would have had to seek out hundreds of these small-timers, who sometimes operate from the shop floor of factories, paying commission to the owner for a pitch to tout their wares.
To be precise, 490 separate wagers would have needed to be placed at the maximum bet of 25,000 rupees. And that was if the bookmaker would offer odds of even money – unlikely given that they were being approached by gamblers they had not previously met, and certainly did not trust, on a market they would never have chalked up. Frankly, it would have been nigh on impossible for anyone on the Indian system to have made money out of those no-balls being bowled at Lord’s.
In this example, the notion that one is able to fix weird and wonderful elements of cricket matches is once again exposed. Substitute the no-ball ‘spot-fix’ for a wide, a boundary being hit, a fielder being placed in a peculiar position, a bowler to open at a particular end. It is unfeasible, just as Vinay said. The minutiae of inside information is used to manipulate markets in the favour of the syndicate, bookmaker or punter, not to win specific bets.
A no-ball in a Twenty20 match adds to the batting team’s total and offers the batsman a free hit. One cannot bet on that no-ball occurring but the syndicate, bookmaker or punter can manipulate the odds in his favour for, say, a bracket because he knows that runs will be scored. It is a potentially game-changing event as thereis a maximum of 120 legal balls in a Twenty20 innings. Its importance in terms of inside information is significant. A no-ball in a Test match does not have the same impact, or even close. In one day of play in a Test match there are at least 540 legal balls. The runs quote for a bracket would not move the market sufficiently enough to be worth manipulating. It is not a game-changing event. A run has been scored. So what?
One could argue that in the case of the Pakistan ‘spot-fixing’, it is irrelevant that one would not have been able to bet on a no-ball being bowled. Pakistan were shown to be guilty of corrupt practices. They were cheating the game, their team-mates and the spectators. And one would be absolutely right, but only if the court they were being tried in and the judge that would sentence them was aware that a no-ball is not a betting opportunity in India. The court was not aware. The judge was not aware. This much is clear from the erroneous sentencing remarks by Mr Justice Cooke:
“Bets could be placed on these no-balls in unlawful markets, mostly abroad, based on inside advance knowledge of what was going to happen... Individuals in India were making £40,000-£50,000 on each identified no-ball. On three no-balls therefore the bookmakers stood to lose £150,000 on each bet by a cheating punter.”
Mr Justice Cooke was apparently convinced that there was an opportunity to wager by evidence given by the prosecution’s first witness: Ravi Sawani, the former general manager of the ACSU. He told the court it is possible to bet on a no-ball. However, and to widespread astonishment, he also admitted he did not know what a bracket was.
Butt, Asif, Amir and Majeed went to prison for charges that included ‘conspiracy to cheat at gambling’. If there was no bet placed, if there was no opportunity to even place that bet and therefore no one was defrauded, can anyone really be guilty of such a charge?
The Gambling Act of 2005 defines ‘conspiracy to cheat at gambling’ as the following:
“1 A person commits an offence if he —
(a) cheats at gambling, or
(b) does anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) it is immaterial whether a person who cheats—
(a) improves his chances of winning anything, or
(b) wins anything.
(3) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) cheating at gambling may, in particular, consist of actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with—
(a) the process by which gambling is conducted, or
(b) a real or virtual game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates.”
It would be difficult to consider the conviction of the four men under this charge as robust simply because of the absence of an opportunity to bet on a no-ball, the earthquake that no one heard or felt. Butt, Asif, Amir or Majeed could not have been “cheats at gambling” or done “anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling” if there was no method to do either. That they could have been considered aware that they were “enabling or assisting” is the moot point perhaps. In the case of Amir, he has since claimed he was unaware that he was asked to bowl no-balls for betting purposes, instead blaming Majeed and Butt for tricking him into thinking his career would be under threat if he did not do as his captain told him.
So what the News of the World sting revealed was not spot-fixing but corrupt practices within the Pakistan team. That was the justification for the scoop, although there has since a lingering level of discomfort among journalists about the way it was conducted. Clearly it was a set-up, a classic agent provocateur – a person associated with individuals suspected of wrongdoing with the purpose of inciting them to commit acts that will make them liable to punishment. It is interesting to note that the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Yasir Hameed, the Pakistan batsman, on a similar ‘sting’ operation by the News of the World in relation to the spot-fixing scandal. Hameed argued that his privacy was breached by hidden cameras and recording equipment when he was speaking to the ‘Fake Sheikh’ about corruption in the Pakistan team.
Mr Justice Cook said the News of the World had “got what they bargained for”. He could have said that the News of the World were the corruptors – and to all intents and purposes that is exactly what they were. Without their money, those no-balls would not have been bowled.
Nor would the no-balls have been bowled if Mazhar Majeed was the fixing ‘kingpin’ as he was portrayed. The ‘sting’ would surely have been drawn from the News of the World if Majeed was indeed the experienced fixer that he claimed to be. In ‘sales’ chatter to impress the undercover journalist, Majeed boasted of his knowledge and expertise in the field:
““It’s been happening for centuries. It’s been happening for years. Wasim [Akram], Waqar [Younis, who was the coach of the Pakistan team during that series against England], Ijaz Ahmed, Moin Khan – they all did it.
““I’ve been doing this with the Pakistani team now for about two-and-a-half years, and we’ve made masses and masses of money. You can make absolute millions.
“We are working towards next month. It is going to be big. I will give you an exact script of how it is going to happen. We’ve got one result already planned and that is coming up in the next three and a half weeks. Pakistan will lose.”
Majeed said that it would cost between £50,000 and £80,000 for information for a bracket, £400,000 to fix a result of a Twenty20 match, £450,000 for a one-day international and £1 million to fix a Test match. There was no mention of how much a no-ball would cost because Majeed, correctly, did not believe one could bet on such an outcome. Yet when the News of the World reporter was talking about placing bets on no-balls, Majeed, instead of hearing alarm bells ringing in his head, heard the shrill of the cash register. Had money not been on his mind, he might have recognised he was being scammed.
Instead he was focused on providing the no-balls that had been demanded, believing that if he could prove that Pakistan players were under his control, there would be more money to come. When Majeed met the journalist at the Copthorne Tara Hotel on August 25, the evening before the Lord’s Test match, it was, in fact, the fifth time they had convened. Majeed was sure that Butt, Amir and Asif would do as he said. He was unequivocal where in the past he had been sketchy about details discussed from a previous Test at The Oval.
“I’m going to give you three no-balls, okay, right, to prove to you firstly that this is what is happening. No-balls are the easiest and they’re the clearest. There’s no signal, nothing. These three are definitely happening.”
Majeed was true to his word. Amir bowled a no-ball the next day from the third ball of the third over and Asif overstepped on the sixth ball of the tenth over. The third was not delivered because the poor weather which had delayed the start until 1.40pm and play was cut short with only 12.3 overs possible.
Keen to reassure his ‘sponsor’ that a third no-ball would still be delivered, Majeed rang the journalist that evening. He told him that Amir would bowl a no-ball off the third ball of his third full over as he still had three balls to bowl the next morning following the disruption. Majeed confirmed this with Amir via text message.
However, for an unknown reason, Majeed attempted to get the ‘fix’ called off. He phoned the journalist, telling him that there “was no point doing the third now”. It is this volte-face that is crucial in exposing Majeed’s inexperience. Alarmed at the prospect of his scoop losing some lustre, the journalist thinks quickly and tells Majeed that he must go through with the third no-ball because his ‘syndicate’ has already placed the bets. This is important. The ‘syndicate’ is claiming to have placed wagers on the timing of no-balls before the match had started. “So you can place money on the no-balls then?” Majeed asks. The journalist says yes. “What sort of monies?” says a surprised Majeed. This is the partially sighted leading the blind.
There can be no doubt that an experienced fixer would know that it is not possible to bet on a no-ball. If Majeed had been the shrewd, shady operator that he claimed to be, and the News of the World had been only too willing to enhance this ‘reputation’, then he would have immediately recognised that the journalist was lying.
Indeed, Majeed’s ignorance is stupefying. For a start he should have known that it was not possible for the ‘syndicate’ to place these ‘bets’ on a market which did not exist. Secondly, a fixer well-connected to the Indian industry would have known that even if such a market did exist, it would have been out of the question to have already placed such a wager before the Test match had started, as the reporter said his ‘punters’ had done. Someone asking for odds for a no-ball from a bowler’s third ball off his third full over on the second day would have been laughed at by any bookmaker in India or anywhere else on the planet. All odds pre-match are run by the Jayanti Malad syndicate and they only offer match odds, team innings runs and lunch favourite. For someone to try to bet on a no-ball before a match had started would be unthinkable.
So why did Majeed not realise that his game was up? The most likely explanation is that he was desperate for the money. His Bluesky firm, which had contracts with local councils to renovate derelict houses, was shown at the time of the trial by Companies House to have five County Court judgements against it. It also had unpaid bills of more than £74,000. Two more of Majeed’s companies were the subject of applications to strike off, a third was in liquidation, a fourth was in receivership and a fifth, also in liquidation, owed £596,000. The court was also told that, at the time of his arrest, police had found Majeed held 30 bank accounts showing total arrears of £704,000. These are not the trappings of a man who boasted about making “masses and masses of money”.
It is possible that Majeed was an aspirant fixer, which would go some way to explain the child-like delight that Amir described when he arrived in his hotel room at the Marriott in Swiss Cottage “looking like he had hit the jackpot, he was so happy” to give the young bowler £1,500. “He said. ‘You are my younger brother’ and he was buzzing with excitement.” One would have thought a veteran fixer would have recognised this as ‘business as usual’.
There are other clues to suggest that Majeed was an unproven operator in the field. For a start, there was the failed fix in The Oval Test that summer. Majeed had met with the News of the World reporter for the first time on August 16 at the Park Lane hotel, two days before the start of that match. The two parties were feeling each other out, establishing one another’s authenticity. Perhaps they were fooling each other.
It was not until their second meeting two days later that the discussion turned to fixing. They met at the Bombay Brasserie in London on the Gloucester Road. The journalist wanted no-balls to be bowled “so that our boys have got an indication this is on. Then they’ll invest big.” Majeed agreed and, ever the showman, added “I’ll give you two if you want.” When the pair met for a third time, on this occasion at a restaurant on the Edgware Road, Majeed confirmed a fix was on after he was paid £10,000:
“Alright, just to show you that it’s real, I’m going to show you two no-balls tomorrow… I’ll call you on another number, yeah, and I’ll call you about 8.30 in the morning and I’ll give you the two balls they’re going to do it on.”
Of course, it was not on. Majeed failed to give any details of when the no-balls would be bowled and by whom, suggesting that he was not as capable of influencing players as he said he was. Majeed started to stall for more time. He said the no-balls would not be bowled at The Oval on the third day because Waqar Younis, the coach, had warned the team about the number of no-balls on the opening day of the Test. Waqar, giving testimony to the ICC tribunal about the case, denied he gave such a teamtalk. Majeed then said there could be not be a no-ball the next day either because Saeed Ajmal, the spin bowler, was bowling and he was not under his influence.
In an attempt to appease the journalist, Majeed told him that he had agreed with Butt that the captain would play out a maiden in the first over on August 21 with the captain tapping with his bat the middle of the wicket after the second ball he had faced to confirm. Butt did not tap the pitch and there was no maiden.
Could it have been that Majeed was frantically trying to buy time to get players onside? Butt, who Majeed had described as a “million per cent” trustworthy, most likely was close to the businessman – he had made personal appearances to promote his faltering property firm and during The Oval Test was scheduled to open an ice cream parlour in Tooting that Majeed had a stake in – but it would appear doubtful he could trust anyone else in the Pakistan side.
At this stage the News of the World must have thought they had a dud. “He [Butt] didn’t do it [the maiden],” the journalist told Majeed. “What if we give you £150,000 and he doesn’t do it and then we put the big money on and it’s all over?”
And then, pertinently: “They don’t listen to you; they don’t take your orders.”
Majeed replied: “OK, boss. Just remember you’re telling me that they don’t listen to me, right? I’ve been in this game a long time and remember you’re the one who contacted me.”
Wounded by this criticism and worried he was about to be found out by the ‘syndicate’ for being a fraud (oh, the irony), a probably desperate Majeed hit upon a plan. With Butt’s help he would target the young naïf Amir and Asif, who came with a disreputable reputation as long as his bowling arm.
Amir, who spoke for the first time in-depth of the ordeal in March 2012, claimed that Majeed had blackmailed him to bowl the no-balls at Lord’s. On the eve of the Lord’s Test Amir received a telephone call from Majeed asking him to meet in the car park of the team hotel. They met in Majeed’s car.
“All of a sudden it was as if someone launched an attack,” Amir said. “He said to me, ‘You’re in big trouble, bro. You’re trapped and your career is at stake.’”
Majeed told him that the ICC’s ACSU had information that Amir had been talking about spot-fixing with a man called Ali, who the bowler knew as a ‘businessman’ he had met for the first time in Dubai in 2009. Text messages between the two showed that Ali was at the least trying to get Amir to spot-fix for him. One, on the eve of The Oval Test, from Ali to Amir read: “So in the first three bowl whatever you like and in the last two do 8 runs?”
There is no evidence that Amir fixed a bracket for Ali in that Test match and all communication between the two had stopped after that game. Majeed is likely to have known about Amir’s relationship with Ali because Butt had told the young tyro to stay away from Ali. Amir had told his captain that Ali had been “bugging” him.
“He [Majeed] said he could help me out of my difficulties but that I had to do a favour for him in return,” Amir said. “I asked him: ‘What favour?’ That’s when he mentioned the two no-balls.
“I realise now that nobody is more stupid than me, that I could not see how ridiculous it was that on the one hand he should be telling me that I was in trouble with the ICC and on the other that I should bowl him two no-balls. But I was panicking and I had lost the ability to comprehend what was going on. After about five minutes, Salman joined us and he sat in the back seat, leaning over between the two front seats, just listening. He didn’t say anything.
“I told him that it was impossible because my feet were always behind the line, that it was a wrong thing to do and that I was scared. He told me not to worry and to practise bowling them at Lord’s during the practice sessions before the match. He said not to worry because Salman would be with me and would help me. I got out of the car and Salman, who still hadn’t said anything at this point, stayed behind. I was worried now and went and sat on the team bus to go to practice, worrying about what I was to do.”
Asif needed manipulating too but he was too wily a campaigner to fall for such a simple trick as blackmail. Asif, it is understood, was known to the ACSU as an unreliable character. In 2006 he had been banned for doping before having his suspension overturned on appeal. He had also been detained in Dubai under the suspicion of carrying drugs and he had tested positive for a banned substance when playing in the IPL.
In court Majeed said via his barrister that he had paid £65,000 to Asif to “keep him loyal” and prevent him from joining rival fixing rackets, involved elsewhere within the team. This admission backs up the belief of Dheeraj Dixit, Asif’s former friend and the ‘fixer’ from Delhi, that Majeed had little control over the Pakistan players and that he had to keep paying out extra funds to try to prevent them from fixing with rival factions.
So we have picture of Majeed as financially broken, bungling and desperate. Someone who would blackmail an 18-year-old bowler considered the golden boy of Pakistan cricket into cheating, threatening him that his career was on the line. And then pay him a measly £1,500 for the deal. Asif, the polar opposite of Amir, and apparently a gun for hire, netted a handsome sum. Mr Justice Cooke said of Asif “it is hard to see how this could be an isolated occurrence for you.”
Justice Cooke was, however, convinced that Majeed and Butt were perceptive designers in the fixing world. He blamed them for corrupting Amir, who he described as “unsophisticated, uneducated, impressionable”.
He also told Majeed that he was not persuaded that the News of the World sting was the “tip of an iceberg” but pointed to evidence, outside of the boasts and bluster to the newspaper’s journalist, that suggested Majeed had been involved in fixing prior to the Lord’s Test. “It appears that corruption may have been more widespread than the defendants here before me and may have permeated the team in earlier days,” Justice Cooke said.

This is an extract from BookieGamblerFixerSpy: a journey to the heart of cricket's underworld. Buy the book here.

Were the Pakistan three really guilty of fixing?

The story of Pakistan’s tour of England in the summer of 2010 would have made good reading as a thriller. Intrigue, infamy, cash in suitcases, back-stabbing, even sex, thanks to Veena Malik, the former girlfriend of Asif having her say, and, finally, courtroom drama.

Butt, the Pakistan captain, Asif and Amir, the two fast bowlers, and Mazhar Majeed, the fixer, were each sentenced to prison for their part in bowling no-balls to order in the fourth Test at Lord’s in August of that year. The four men, who all blamed one another for the crime, had been charged with conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat at gambling.

It was considered a disastrous day for cricket. It was, however, considered a great day for investigative journalism.

Hidden cameras showed Majeed talking to undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood, perhaps best known as the ‘Fake Sheik’.

Majeed was seen to propose three no-balls during the Lord’s Test, two to be bowled by Amir and one by Asif. For this information he was paid £150,000.

‘Caught!’ screamed the NotW headline under a ‘world exclusive’ banner. ‘Match-fixer pockets £150k as he rigs the England Test at Lord’s’. And ‘We expose betting scandal that will rock cricket’.

Butt received two years and six months, Asif one year, Amir six months and Majeed two years and eight months. The story that had everything was a bestseller. But did it really have everything? The answer is, unquestionably, no.

In the backstreets of every Indian city, in outbuildings or bedrooms of crumbling apartments, never did a bookmaker cry ‘souda fok!’ - ‘all bets are off, it’s a fix’. In other words, there was no betting scam. There was no spot-fix.

It is the great irony of this tale. A story purported to be the latest in a litany of match-fixing scandals in the sport was far removed from the illegal Indian market where the ‘fix’ supposedly had its roots.

‘It seemed clear to me they that had been scammed,’ an Indian bookmaking contact told me. Recordings by the newspaper showing Majeed, a Croydon-based businessman, predicting when the no-balls were to be bowled would appear proof of match-fixing or spot-fixing to the layman.

But to anyone with a semblance of betting knowledge it was anything but. The NotW spent £150,000 and failed to get a bet on. The money paid was for Majeed to prove that he could control the Pakistan players.

Amid the media storm, not once was the question asked: if the newspaper had wanted to make money betting on the Indian market on those no-balls, could it have done so?

Everyone in the Indian book-making world I have spoken to has confirmed it is not possible to bet on the timing of a no-ball.

Yet it was convenient for the media to ignore this point. It would have spoiled the story. The illegal Indian market is a monster. It is vast. It is unregulated. But it is structured and it is certainly not complacent.

‘Do you think we’re fools?’ one Indian bookie told me. ‘If someone says they want this no-ball bet for big monies and I’m Ladbrokes, I tell them to go away. No bookmaker in the world takes this bet.’ 

The reason would be that they suspected you had inside information. And it is no different in India.

You could argue that in the case of the Pakistan ‘spot-fixing’, it is irrelevant that one would not have been able to bet on a no-ball. The three Pakistan players were shown to be guilty of corrupt practices. They were cheating the game, their team-mates and the spectators.

And you would be absolutely right, but only if the court they were being tried in and the judge who would sentence them were aware that a no-ball is not a betting opportunity in India.

The court was not aware. The judge was not aware. This much is clear from the erroneous sentencing remarks by the Hon Mr Justice Cooke: ‘Bets could be placed on these no-balls in unlawful markets, mostly abroad, based on inside advance knowledge of what was going to happen... 

Individuals in India were making £40,000–£50,000 on each identified no-ball. On three no-balls, therefore, the bookmakers stood to lose £150,000 on each bet by a cheating punter.’ 

Butt, Asif, Amir and Majeed went to prison for charges that included ‘conspiracy to cheat at gambling’. If there was no bet placed, if there was no opportunity to even place that bet and therefore no one was defrauded, can anyone be guilty of such a charge? 

Mr Justice Cook said the NotW had ‘got what they bargained for’. Yet without their money, those no-balls would not have been bowled.

Keen to reassure his ‘sponsor’ that a third no-ball would still be delivered, Majeed rang the journalist that evening.

He told him that Amir would bowl a no-ball off the third ball of his third full over as he still had three balls to bowl the next morning following the disruption. Majeed confirmed this with Amir via text message.

However, for an unknown reason, Majeed attempted to get the ‘fix’ called off. He phoned the journalist, telling him that there ‘was no point doing the third now’. It is this volte-face that is crucial in exposing Majeed’s inexperience.

Alarmed at the prospect of his scoop losing some lustre, the journalist thinks quickly and tells Majeed that he must go through with the third no-ball because his ‘syndicate’ has already placed the bets. 

This is important.

The ‘syndicate’ is claiming to have placed wagers on the timing of no-balls before the match had started. ‘So you can place money on the no-balls then?’ Majeed asks. The journalist says yes. ‘What sort of monies?’ says a surprised Majeed. This is the partially-sighted leading the blind.

If Majeed had been the shrewd, shady operator that he claimed to be - and the NotW had been only too willing to enhance this ‘reputation’ - then he would have immediately recognised that the journalist was lying.

Indeed, Majeed’s ignorance is stupefying. For a start he should have known that it was not possible for the syndicate to place these bets on a market that did not exist.

Secondly, a fixer well-connected to the Indian industry would have known that, even if such a market did exist, it would have been out of the question to have already placed such a wager before the Test match had started, as the reporter said his punters had done.

Someone asking for odds for a no-ball from a bowler’s third ball off his third full over on the second day would have been laughed at by any bookmaker in India - or anywhere else on the planet.

This article was first published in the Daily Mail on November 11 2012 and was extracted from Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: a journey to the heart of cricket's underworld

How cricket ceded power to cricket's Godfather

When the stakeholders, the strategists and the savants have had their say over the reconstruction of the ICC by India, Australia and England, it has been telling that many have used the ‘tent’ analogy. Cricket needs India, or more specifically its strongman Narayan Srinivisan, on the inside urinating out, rather than the outside, urinating in.

The quote was attributed to Lyndon B Johnson, who was describing FBI director J Edgar Hoover. Hoover favoured intimidation and threats to get what he wanted. No-one ever took him on.

Srinivasan appears to enjoy similar immunity. In June he emerged unblinking in front of the flashbulbs at a press conference in Melbourne to make his first statement as president of the ICC, completing the most audacious powergrab in cricket history.

The cricketing family had ceded power to Srinivasan, who looked every inch the Godfather with a sporting check jacket and goldfish-bowl sunglasses, and his co-horts Giles Clarke of the ECB and Wally Edwards of Cricket Australia. Together they called themselves ExCo (Executive Committee), a trinity which will pocket the bulk of a potential £2.5billion worth of ICC revenue in the next eight years, while the rest will feed on scraps. Associate members will lose about £182 million.

Mike Brearley called it the greatest crisis since Packer. Other luminaries such as Clive Lloyd and Ehsan Mani, the former ICC president, pleaded with the other nations to stand up for themselves. But just when they should have been up in arms, they could barely lift a finger.

Srinivasan now holds the purse strings, threatening the fabric of the sport: its integrity. The financial carve-up may leave everyone bar India, Australia and England knocking on the door of the poor house, but cricket’s reputation as a sport which was at least run with a modicum propriety is in doubt. It’s not just about the money.

It’s about good governance. The rules and regulations. The checks and counterchecks. The conventions which give an organisation the best chance of making the right decision. It is not a side of sport which inspires the fan in the cheap seats to rouse a roar from his craw. Bad governance is the opposite. It can infect the faithful with apathy, leaving once clicking turnstiles to rust in rigidity. Srinivasan and his cabal appear to come up short.

Ehsan Mani perhaps describes it best. “Fifa is doing better with its governance now than cricket. Who is Sepp Blatter? I’m not sure whether it’s Srinivasan or Clarke.”

Clarke is probably not in Srinivasan’s league. He did team up English cricket with Allen Stanford, the disgraced Texan financier who was convicted of a £4.4 billion fraud for the grotesque Twenty20 for $20 million game but having smoothed Srinivasan’s path to the top, he may only be the Indian industrialist’s poodle.

Srini, as he is called, has been barred from running the BCCI by the Supreme Court of India for his role in the Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal. The franchise his company – India Cements - owns, the Chennai Super Kings, have been implicated and his son-in-law, the team manager Gurunath Meiyappan, has been found guilty of passing on team information to bookmakers. An investigation is ongoing.

It says a lot about ExCo’s attitude towards respectability that a man considered not fit for office with his home board, by no less than the highest court in India, should be allowed to assume control of the world game.

“I absolutely believe in innocent until proven guilty,” Mani says. “He’s under suspicion and the most decent thing to do is to only assume charge once he has had his name cleared. You put the credibility of the game first but this is just how it’ll be run in the future.”

Srinivasan, however, does not do humility. In front of a disbelieving media in Melbourne, he claimed that he removed himself from the presidency of the BCCI. It was some swank because he appealed the decision - twice.

Before even the involvement of the Supreme Court, a BCCI inquiry had found Srinivasan had no case to answer with regard to the spot-fixing allegations. So why did the court get involved? Srinivasan had either chosen, or approved the names of, the two retired judges who cleared him.

It gives a clue as to how the ICC will be run under Srinivasan. At the BCCI, he reduced the role of the all-important secretary to that of a rubber stamp. Sanjay Jagdale, one former incumbent, admitted he “didn’t really have much to do with Indian cricket”. Srinivasan was involved in every decision and appointment, no matter how minor.

Ravi Shastri, the former allrounder turned commentator, says Srinivasan is “misunderstood”. “Great man,” he says. “Gets an unfair press because he does things his way and makes no bones about how he wants those things done. He’s involved every calls and people in BCCI need that. He’s the best prepared, the most knowledgable.”

Inderjit Singh Bindra, the closest Indian cricket has to a moral authority, former BCCI president and principal advisor to the ICC president, compared Srinivasan to Jagmohan Dalmiya, his former mentor, who used to stalk cricket’s powers of corridor with similar menace.

“He says Haroon Lorgat should not be in charge of the South Africa board and he is suspended. He says DRS is not acceptable so it is not acceptable. He knew he could control everything. He told me he wanted to be the next Dalmiya, who was the Godfather. But Srini is far more dangerous. He has more resources. All the paperwork [for BCCI] is done by his India Cements employees.”

Mani says Srinivasan and ExCo has ridden roughshod over corporate governance. “They’ve totally disregarded the ICC code of ethics when it was all put into play,” he says. “The code is very clear that no member could have a conflict of interest, no member or group of members could act in their own interest. This is all spelt out in the old code which has now been scrapped.

“In a five-man committee, it’s whatever these three decide. According to ICC papers and the new revamped articles they’re setting up is that ExCo is the sole committee, the only committee that can make recommendations to the ICC for financial distribution, constitutional, personnel, anti-corruption, ethics and integrity matters.”

There are crashing conflicts of interest and alarming errors of judgment aplenty. Srinivasan, as owner of the Super Kings and BCCI president, is financially reliant on the success of the IPL, a tournament which in turn relies heavily on the other ICC nations’ biggest stars. There was also the bizarre appointment of Peter Chingoka onto the new governance committee. Chingoka, the Zimbabwean, has been banned from travelling to the EU for his ties to Robert Mugabe. Before his resignation from Zimbabwe cricket following allegations of financial misconduct, ExCo deemed him fit for their new era.

“It’s an attitude we can do what we wish,” says a former ICC board member. “What anyone thinks or feels, it doesn’t matter. It’s only putting an individual on a committee. It’s nothing. They’ve done worse. The Future Tours Programme was agreed by all members in June 2011. It was binding. But ExCo said it wasn’t and ripped it up. The Woolf report [a paper which demanded ICC independence] was ignored.

“Srini’s not scared to blackmail. The message is clear. ‘If you don’t do as I say, this is what I’ll do’.”

There is also an issue with ‘do as I say, not as I do’. When it comes to anti-corruption, what hope does the sport have of being clean when its head is being investigated for fixing?

“The anti-corruption unit should be totally independent,” says Mani. “Now it is answerable to Srinivasan. His BCCI right-hand man Sundar Raman sits on the anti-corruption review. It is not credible.”

There is also a stark warning from Tim May. May resigned last year as chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations because he was “sick of operating in a landscape where things were determined by threats and intimidation”.

May, who lost his position on the ICC cricket committee to Laxman Sivaramakrishnan because of BCCI “intimidation”, says players will find it harder to be honest and fair.

“Everyone’s a product of their environment and their culture so if you’re in a sport and the governance of that sport is not principally sound, honest or without integrity then that filters down to the culture that you exist within. It can suggest if the administration is corrupt, the players will then question when the administrators lecture them, or have put before them various behavioural codes. ‘How come we have to meet higher standards than you?’.”

For now, Srinivasan leads. But for how long? Srinivasan, Clarke and Edwards will share the role, each doing a two-year term before the cycle begins again. But wherever Srinivasan has been in cricket administration – the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and the BCCI – he has changed the constitution to allow him to hold a position for longer than ever before.

What is to stop him deciding an Indian should run the game in perpetuity, having successful argued his country should have the most say as it earns the most money?

“He can do what he wants,” says Mani. “He has all the power and all of the self-interest. He can bully and intimidate. No-one stands up to him. There is no good that can come from this.”

Srini looking at the stars

If the world game is looking for a chink in Narayan Srinivasan’s armour, then search no more. The ICC chairman is extremely superstitious and is understood to employ a personal astrologer.

Such is Srini’s faith in the mystic arts that he has used an astrologer to advise on team strategy for his franchise, the Chennai Super Kings, in the Indian Premier League. Vastu Venkatesan, an astrologer based in Chennai, also offers insight to help Srinivasan run his business empire.

During IPL 2013, Venkatesan advised Srinivasan on Chennai’s batting order and what to do if they won the toss to give Chennai the best chance of winning the toss. Team officials were also ordered to wear specific coloured t-shirts to improve chances, pictures of deities and goddesses had to be hung up in the dressing room while the opposition should be given “red towels” for bad luck

Before the final against Kolkata Knight Riders, Srini’s astrologer told him that “special prayers” had to be said for MS Dhoni as there were “not friendly” omens for the India captain. It didn’t work. Chennai lost.

This article was first published in The Cricketer magazine

Searching for Sanjeev: Hansie Cronje's fixer

At first glance the cul-de-sac just off the Finchley Road in north London is calm, cosseted by the bosom of suburbia. The bins have been neatly arranged for the morning’s collection. Mock Tudor homes are blemished by satellite dishes. Ready-to-roar 4x4s shimmer out front. The odd net curtain twitches. At No 4, the gate has been left open. In haste or a sign that the owner will return?

“Yes, they’re still there,” says the woman at No 6 with a hint of American drawl.

“The Chawlas?”

“Yes...haven’t seen them for a few weeks, though. Perhaps they’re on holiday.”

Before she opened the door a perturbed, wide-eye had appeared behind the glass. Her voice wavered in the way that they do when strangers call. She is right to be nervous, although not for the right reasons. She is living next door to one of India’s most wanted. A man on an Interpol hunted list. A man Delhi police believe was the brains behind the match-fixing scandal that tore cricket asunder. His name is Sanjeev Chawla. Hansie Cronje’s fixer.

Chawla is an international man of mystery, a ghost. Delhi police have wanted him ever since Cronje’s shame broke news and hearts in April 2000. More than 13 long years ago. They thought they had their man once, when he was in possession of Scotland Yard, but he was released. They are about to try again.

In July, Chawla and Cronje, who died in a plane crash in June 2002, were named in a 70-page chargesheet by Delhi police for “fixing matches played between India and South Africa from February 16, 2000 to March 20, 2000 in India". Despite the passage of time, it is understood the failure to bring to justice two men for committing the heinous crime of disrespecting a game adored by billions, is a wound that will not heal.  A sore which has weeped more since the Indian Premier League fixing investigation.

“This is criminal conspiracy,” said Ravindra Yadav, additional commissioner of police. “People went to watch the games thinking they would be played in the true spirit. They did not know the outcome was fixed. That's why we have filed the charges." Yadav wants Chawla extradited. “We are almost sure he’s in London.” Good luck finding him.

Night after night Chawla’s bolthole in London’s jewish quarter is quiet. The lights are off and no one is ever at home. The telephone rings unanswered. The buzzer of the intercom – a clue to Chawla’s nervousness about unwanted visitors - echoes eerily in the void beyond. He is rumoured to have hideouts all over the country and, when the Cronje furore reached its zenith, he used to sleep in his car to avoid reporters.

Once, he answered my call. With his guard uncharacteristically lowered, he confirmed he was Chawla. But when asked whether we could talk cricket, he garbled “ugotwrongnumba’ and hung up. Chawla is wary. Possibly he has told friends, associates and employees to be the same. “Sanjeev?” they will bluster. “Don’t know him, sorry”.

Not much is known about the man who brought cricket to its knees. His family were from Pakistan. The Chawlas moved to Jangpura, a neighbourhood in south Delhi,  in 1953 and ran a clothing business which within ten years  had fixed assets worth £800,000. Chawla was born in April 1967. In 1993 he left for London to run an import-expert clothes outlet, under the auspices of Commercial Clothing Limited, in Oxford Street. He lived in a flat in Hendon, drove a rickety BMW and sometimes borrowed money from staff.

Rajesh Kalra, who according to police was “arguably the biggest cricket betting operator in Delhi with worldwide links”, appeared to back a belief that Chawla was more interested in gambling on cricket than his clothes shop. He told a news agency in 2000: “[Sanjeev] is a deep water fish. He has been around for a while in the world of cricket betting.”

Kalra was to prove a key cog in the wheel of illegal fortune. He met Chawla in London in September 1999 and plans were hatched to fix matches to the tune of £1.5 million. Manmohan Khattar and Sunil Dara, two Delhi bookmakers, were added to the gang. Towards the end of the year more meetings were held in Delhi and Mumbai. Kalra, Khattar and Dara have each been named in the chargesheet.

A former cop who worked on the investigation said that it was the job of Khattar and Dara to ensure the bets were placed. “Chawla wasn’t working alone,” he said. “They were placing the bets in the Indian market after receiving the information from Chawla. He was a very intelligent man. A great charmer, good looking. He was a very organised man.”

Evidently. Chawla was able to make friends with Cronje through a connection with Hamid Cassim, who hailed from Johannesburg and claimed to be close to members of the South African team. Clive Lloyd, the manager of the West Indies, claimed to have seen Chawla in a VIP box during the team’s tour to South Africa in 1998-99.

Cronje told the King Commission - the enquiry in South Africa during which a nation’s hero was revealed a villain – how he first met Chawla. He knew him as ‘Sanjay’ and was introduced by Cassim in a Durban hotel during the triangular one-day series involving England and Zimbabwe in early 2000. “They said I could make a lot of money if we would lose a match,” Cronje said. In a written confession, he revealed Chawla gave him $10-15,000.  Chawla has denied ever meeting Cronje. The charge sheet boasts evidence from a cleaner at a hotel in Mumbai who saw Cronje "going inside Chawla's room empty-handed and coming out with a bag".

When Delhi police released the now infamous Cronje tapes, recorded during the Pepsi one-day series in in India in March 2000, Chawla was the voice police believed was at the other end of the line. The game was up.

Chawla: Is [Pieter] Strydom playing?
Cronje: Yes he is playing. Yeah.
Chawla: [Nicky] Boje?
Cronje: Boje is playing.
Chawla: And who is playing? [Herschelle] Gibbs?
Cronje: Gibbs and myself.
Chawla: Yeah, what about anybody else?
Cronje: No, I won’t be able to get any more.
Chawla: You won’t be able to get more?
Cronje: No.
Chawla: Ok, just tell me. But you have only four with you and not anybody else?
Cronje: No.
Chawla: [Lance] Klusener and no one?
Cronje: No, no, impossible, impossible. They were saying that they were already doing Cochin. The other guys are already angry with me because I have not received their money you know.
Chawla: But I told you I have already given him altogether 60.
Cronje: Ok.
Chawla: And tomorrow I can deposit the money in your account, it is not a problem because of the time difference. Tomorrow itself I can deposit the money.
Cronje: Ok. Everything is fine. Spoken to Gibbs and to [Henry] Williams and Strydom. Everything is fine.

On the basis of such evidence Cronje was banned for life in October 2000 by the King Commission. Gibbs and Williams were banned for six months, Boje and Strydom, who under oath both denied ever having been involved in fixing, were exonerated. Chawla was safe in London.

“How much money did he make?” wondered the Delhi police source. “Hard to say. Very difficult to say how much any bookie would make from fixing because there were many layers to this kind of corruption. But it would have been, I presume, several crore.” One crore roughly equates to £120,000. The chargesheet claims more than twice that amount was handed over by Chawla to Cronje.

That the world listened in to the conversation between Cronje and Chawla appears to be the fault of Kalra, the much-vaunted gambling expert. It was his mobile phone that Chawla had given to Cronje. The same phone police were monitoring because two Mumbai businessmen had complained they were being threatened by extortion.

It is that suggestion of menace at play in a twisted, tawdry tale which has added to the intrigue surrounding Chawla. Match-fixing and the mafia have been bedfellows since the 1980s. The underworld is not shy of extortion, either. It is an unfair link, however, as police do not believe Chawla was a gangster. He was too “sophisticated”.

What does Rajesh Kalra think? Kalra is easier to find than Chawla, although he is only marginally more willing to talk. Over a crackling cellphone line from Ghana, where he was on business, Kalra was irked to be asked about his involvement in the Cronje affair and the charges by police. He spat back answers.

“I never met Cronje. You know Sanjeev? He’s the one who knows everything. I never met Hansie Cronje.

“But Delhi police have named you?”

“I don’t know about that. They haven’t given me notice of that. They have to prove it in the court. I haven’t see the papers.”

“I want to talk to Sanjeev.”

 “Go and see him. He’s a good man, a through gentleman. He’s a good person. He’s a good looker. Very suave. Take some women with you and you’ll be fine. A good sense of humour.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Never, never, never. Whatever has happened has happened, no bullshit with him. He’s the last person on earth to be associated with that. I know that.”

After Cronje, Chawla went back to work in the clothing business. He also owned a restaurant on the Commercial Road in Whitechapel. It closed after a fire. He has held nine directorships in companies since 1996. Commercial Clothing Limited was dissolved in 2004 with liabilities of £21,000.

Today he is listed as a director of Aksu, another clothing company. Its registered address is in Kennington, south London. One of his business partners is Kasim Akkus, a renowned restaurateur in London since 1975. Akkus runs ISK Catering, a company which Chawla was director of from May to June this year.

At his restaurant on Great Portland Street Akkus greets customers with a smile and thumbs up. Including me. On a weekday lunchtime I eat chicken kiev and rice. He takes a seat in front of me, still wearing his chef’s shirt, to meet with a friend over a plate of salad. They talk quickly, pausing occasionally to glance at the television showing a Turkish soap opera.

Before leaving I thank him for my meal and ask Akkus about the scores of signed photographs of celebrities which adorn the walls. One is of John Sergeant, the veteran journalist more famous for his clumsy performances on Strictly Come Dancing. “He came here a lot,” says Akkus after I tell him Sergeant knew my father.

There is another photo which caught my eye. It hangs outside the lavatories. It is of Javed Miandad playing a cover drive. The former Pakistan batsman’s son is married to the daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, the notorious gangster who used to have a vice-like hold on the illegal Indian betting markets. “I know all the cricketers, Pakistani peoples,” says Akkus.

But does he know Sanjeev? “Sanjeev?...No, I don’t know him”. Surprised, I remind him of the names of Akus directors. His face lights up and he laughs. “Ah! Sanjeev! Indian guy. He’s my shareholder. I think he’s a good guy. I’m not friends with him. In ISK [ISK Catering] the S is for Sanjeev. I am the K, for Kasim. 

He’s a charming man. He know many people.”

Does he know that Delhi police want to extradite him? “I don’t know. I meet him five or six times. I don’t know him very well. If you leave your name and number I will give him a message.”

That evening I am once again outside Chawla’s home in that safe, serene, tree-lined street in north London. A light is on upstairs. It goes out as I buzz. No answer. I walk to a nearby coffee shop, composing a text message to Chawla, telling him I will try again in 15 minutes. When I go back the lights are still off. Later that night, Chawla replies: “I request you to please not call again as this is invasion of my privacy and causing emotional distress to me and my family. I don’t want to speak to anyone regarding anything, kindly respect this.”

“You will have to talk sometime,” I tell him. 

This article was first published in The Cricketer December 2013

Troubled Vincent sitting duck for fixers

It is an uncomfortable -- but wholly rational -- truth that corruption in cricket, and any sport for that matter, will never be wiped out. Why? Because we are human. In an Indian Cricket League match or English county 40-over clash, 22 men will take to the field. It only takes one to be a bad apple.

Over the last few days, the leaked testimonies, claims and counter-claims would have you believe there is more than just one bad apple. A cartload? An orchard? It is impossible to put a number on it, although during my investigations spanning almost five years I've heard the names of approaching 50 taken in vain.

But to really begin to understand how rotten cricket is, or could be, it is important to appreciate the anatomy of match-fixing. How, exactly, does it work?

In Lou Vincent's example, he has the perfect personality traits to be considered vulnerable: a troubled man with money worries parachuting in and out of foreign lands to ply his trade in the twilight of his career.

His story, according to the outpouring noted down by anti-corruption investigators, is another stereotype. From being approached to carrying out the fix to receiving the money, it is almost the classic modus operandi which players have been warned about in countless anti-corruption tutorials.

In the beginning, Vincent was a sitting duck. His battle with depression and alcohol alerted unscrupulous sorts who saw an opportunity to manipulate a human being for monetary gain. This ability by corruptors to hone in on the weak is disturbing. They search for any flaw, and fixers or bookies have been known to search social network sites for any chink in the armour.

Reading Vincent's testimony, it is clear the fixers tested him out. He was offered praise, sex, gifts and, finally, money. Often a corruptor will invite a player to his hotel room and just say "here's $20,000, take it, go and have a good time, it's because I like you as a player".

One former fixer in India told me he had seen this on countless occasions and never had he seen a player turn it down. They were hooked.

What follows is usually something more subtle, although in Vincent's case he appears to have begun fixing relatively quickly.

The fixers will test a player out with small requests for information with big rewards. Then they will ask for something seemingly irrelevant in a game, to check their mettle.

If those tests have been passed, they will turn up the heat. You owe us now. A batsman will be pressured into batting slowly in a one-day match or a bowler will be asked to go for a certain amount of runs in a certain amount of overs. The spot-fix.

The devil is in the detail with the spot-fix. Vincent claimed he was ordered to crawl along at the crease for three-over segments. He told the henchmen that a fix would be on by changing the colour of his bat handle, stepping away when a bowler was running in or wearing a particular coloured sweat band. Black, fittingly, most of the time.

Crucially, this was to allow time for the fixer to place his bets on the vast and unregulated Indian betting system. It is a myth that you can wager on weird and wonderful outcomes in India. Bets are restricted to four markets only -- the match odds, innings runs, session runs and who will be the favourite at the innings break.

It is the session market -- also known as the bracket -- which Vincent would have been attempting to manipulate. With inside information of what Vincent had agreed to do, the fixers would have been able to make huge sums in exactly the same way that an insider trader would on a stock market.

Bookmakers offer a runs quote for the session market -- say 65-66 in the first 10 overs of a 50-over game. That quote will change after every ball, going up or down relative to how the run rate is progressing. If you know what is going to happen, riches are almost guaranteed. If a bowler has been nobbled by a fixer, the same method is applied.

Such minute manipulation is almost impossible to prove and it is why the smart cricketers who indulge will never stray from such a specialism. How does an anti-corruption unit prove, beyond doubt, that a batsman or bowler has deliberately underperformed for what could amount to only six deliveries?

Rarely is there a money trail. Corrupt players are paid in soft assets. There have been cases of speedboats being the bounty or, as the infamous player X revealed to Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum, Dubai property. When such money is brought back into a country following a sale, it is easier for a player to claim it as profit of his wheeling and dealing.

If a player is paid in cash, and Vincent says he was, then the hawala system will be used. The hawala system is glued by trust. Money is transferred via a network of hawala brokers, often family members, or hawaladars. But the money does not, in fact, go anywhere, either physically or electronically, and the system can be defined by the term: money transfer without money movement.

A customer will approach a hawala broker in one city and give a sum of money to be transferred to a recipient in another city. The hawala broker calls another hawala broker in the recipient's city, gives instructions of the funds and promises to settle the debt at a later date. All parties are given a code or password and at the start and end of the process.

It is understood that Vincent was told to give the serial number of a $20 note to his bookmaker, who would then pass this on to the broker. When Vincent met up with him, he would repeat the serial number and also undergo a voice recognition test.

So far, so simple.

The problem comes when players or fixers get greedy. They try to spread their net and catch more players. They want bigger returns so they attempt to rig a whole match.

Undoubtedly, this is what has led to Vincent being charged by the ECB. It is probable that there are many, many cricketers who are not that stupid.

Alas, the apple does not fall that far from the tree.

This article was first published in the New Zealand Herald on May 24