Fears over match-fixing in county cricket on the increase

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More... May 27, 2010 Fears over match-fixing in county cricket on the increase Old Trafford (third day of four): Essex, with six second-innings wickets in hand, are 278 runs ahead of Lancashire John Westerby There was a match-fixing storm swirling above yesterday’s LV= County Championship matches, but that was nothing new for Essex this season. Since it emerged in March that two of their players, Danish Kaneria and Mervyn Westfield, were being investigated by police about allegations of spot-fixing, Essex have been doing their best to conduct business as usual. But the ECB revealed yesterday that two other players have reported approaches from bookmakers this season. In addition to yesterday’s newspaper reports that a county cricketer had been approached by an Indian businessman with a view to providing information on results, this confirmed that the investigations surrounding the Essex pair are not isolated incidents. Paul Grayson, the Essex first-team coach, said yesterday: “As far as I’m concerned, they’ve investigated a few cases over the last couple of years, but this is all new, so it’s really disappointing if that’s happening in county cricket. We’ve expected it to happen overseas, but certainly not in our game.” Rumours have circulated in the game for years and Grayson confirmed that, during his playing career, from 1990 to 2004, he encountered players who had been approached. “A couple of guys I spoke to were asked questions, that was when I was playing,” he said. “It’s probably more rife than we can imagine, it certainly is overseas.” This season, it has fallen to Grayson to keep his players’ minds on their cricket. Kaneria and Westfield were arrested two weeks ago, but no charges were brought and they were released on bail until September 15. Kaneria is playing against Lancashire this week and will continue to appear for the county until he joins the Pakistan squad in July, while Westfield has been playing for the second XI, but Grayson says that their team-mates have not been distracted. “The players have been outstanding,” he said. “It came to a head before we went to Barbados pre-season and since then they’ve just stayed focused on the cricket.” There has certainly been an impressive focus about Essex this week, but their hopes of victory over Lancashire were frustrated yesterday.