Topic: The Cricket Match-Fixing Scandal (Read 651 times)

You wouldn't mind if I ask you but what is crores, I understand that it is the amount but how is the comma sometimes put in an unconventional way? Considering the amount of money involved in match fixing, I don't think that we are going to see people involved in the fixing being sloppy about their work that may connect them to someone, pretty sure that they got much more craftier because of the past scandals.

When something like this happens, the basic decency is to drop the judge from the future matches. But the judge mentioned here (Adalaide Byrd) continues to be present in the jury for high profile matches.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/4753638/controversial-golovkin-vs-canelo-judge-adalaide-byrd-returns/

This sense of immunity further exacerbate the problem. The judges know that they can take bribes and dish out a biased scorecard as per their liking, and yet nothing will happen to them. Each of these matches witness a betting turnover of billions of USD. In the long term, it tarnishes the reputation of the sport.

Yes, I was talking about low tier fights and at least to me it seems this happens quite often but like always circumstances change, it could be very common where I live but not as common on many other different countries, but it is undeniable that it should be way harder when it comes to professional fights and yet it probably happens from time to time, I remember the fight you are talking about, and I remember scoring that fight 113-115 for GGG, I did not mind the judge giving 114-114 as the fight was close and it is within the margin of error, but the judge that scored the fight 118-110 saw a different fight than the rest of the world.

Gambling is illegal in India and that is the reason why these raids happen. And most of the time, it is the small fish who gets caught. Organized match fixing is controlled by the Dawood gang and other organized mafias and the Indian law enforcement can't act against them (partly because they are mostly based in UAE and some of the other countries, and also due to some of the Indian politicians supporting this gang). If someone gets caught, that is purely because they have refused to pay bribes to the cops and the policemen. If the government legalize sports gambling and make it regulated (similar to the western nations), then this criminal involvement will be reduced.

During the previous IPL league crores and crores of rupees were seized by the police department in connection to gambling. They tried the best to find, is there is any connection with the cricket players. No connection were found, because these days cricket players are not into these activities after several incidents that have ended players entire cricketing career.

Different activities go only regularly I various sporting activities. so many sports industry now gamble off their games with a mind of making more returns placing more preference to the gambling other than the game itself. If the investigator had gone in his real identity I believe a proper cover-up would have been done to his out their pit holes . I personally haven't really done much research on most of this happenings around gambling in general but as an eye opener this is to me i think paying kin attention to how various sports industry handle their games and the rate at which the carry out their activities would be of great concern to me now and not just getting entertained and gambling away my hard currency not knowing the games has been Manipulated

How common are such incidents in the sport of boxing? Such fixing may occur in lower tier fights. But there is zero chance that the top fights are being fixed. That said, the scoring has been a contentious issue for sometime in boxing. I have seen a number of instances when the win was awarded to the boxer who performed poorly.

A good example is the (first) fight between Canelo Álvarez and Gennady Golovkin. Adalaide Byrd had a shocking scorecard of 118-110 for Alvarez (meaning that he won 10 out of the 12 rounds) when the TV broadcasters and neutral observers claimed that Golovkin indeed won 8 to 10 rounds. And the biggest joke is that Adalaide Byrd continues to be a judge. But I don't have any reason to believe that Byrd indulged in fixing here. The biased scorecard possibily resulted from the personal bias towards Álvarez, rather than due to any monetary considerations.

It is incredibly common to the point it makes no sense to make any kind of bets on small events as you are at the mercy of those that want to rig the sport, I like boxing and I even go and watch new fighters, or at least I did before the pandemic came, and at least once every night there was a moment in which I said this fight is rigged, I could clearly see one of the fighters not giving it all or the judges giving the fight to someone that did not deserve it and that is extremely disappointing for those that actually love the sport since it destroys the incentive to keep watching it.

Not sure of the negative covid certificate for money but I have seen that indeed a lot of Asian countries are involved in matchfixing and that might have something to do with the economy because new players and athletes have to bribe a chain of officials before they are even allowed to play at the highest level. Hence, once they get to that level they don't see a problem in taking money and throwing a few matches or performing badly.

The change needs to come from the bottom, if the selection process is transparent and the players know they didn't have to bribe through their way to the top, I am sure these kinds of incidents won't happen.

Another reason for these fixing scandals is the salary and wages of these players. Would you think an NBA player would ever cheat or throw a game intentionally, I don't think so, that's because they have a hefty salary and contracts that no one can offer them.

First of all, cricket is different from other sports. The other sports bodies such as basketball and football are managed by former players, who care about the sport. But in case of cricket, the former players are rarely involved in administration. The power lies with people like N Srinivasan (one of the accused in the 2015 IPL fixing scandal) and Sharad Pawar (a politician with alleged links to the D-gang) who don't have any connection to cricket. Naturally they are not interested in the well being of cricket and don't care much about the match fixing issue.

It's common already but the thing is, there is now a strict law about it like here in our country.

Even the mastermind of the culprit can't be determined, if a player is found guilty of participating in a rigged game, a hard sanction will be given or at worst, permanently suspended which is a hard penalty. Not all players want that and others are voicing out if they found a certain game is rigged.

Here is the link of the recent rigged game happened in one of our local basketball league and everyone who participated has given a wild penalty:
https://www.spin.ph/basketball/lookback-on-game-fixing-episodes-in-philippine-basketball-a2437-20210415-lfrm

Whenever I do see some news about rigged game and events then I do have those thoughts that "here we go again" its indeed nothing new. If big sports events or leagues can be rigged out
on known sports then how much more on lower or small ones?

Here are some recent ones.
https://www.news24.com/sport/cricket/proteas/anti-corruption-chief-defends-2015-match-fixing-process-amid-race-based-unfairness-allegations-20210521
https://igamingbusiness.com/lithuanian-basketball-player-found-guilty-of-match-fixing/

Sigh,,, welcome to Asian politics which bleeds all the corruption and scandals into sports. Happens in football also and even small games like badminton, but yes, very problematic in cricket.

In Pakistan, the country's leader was an ex cricket player too so we all know cricket gains respect and it leads you into a path to popularity and politics. Very sad but unfortunately,,, nothing new.

From what I heard, he was double crossed by the BJP guys. The court had acquitted him and it ruled that the ban against him was illegal. But the BCCI would not remove the ban, due to the involvement of powerful people (Sreesanth made a lot of enemies during his career). When the state elections were around in 2016, Sreesanth was approached by the BJP and was asked to contest as a candidate. In return he got the assurance that his ban will be removed. He contested the elections, but after that BJP went back on its word.

Disappointing but not unexpected, it is obvious what it is happening, they think that if they were to admit there was some wrongdoing then that will damage the sport and they have decided to hide everything and make it seem as if nothing is happening, however what will happen with this decision is that the few that know about this will stop supporting the sport and the organizations responsible for this are just going to keep fixing games and become more powerful to the point they may take control of the sport one day.

Are you saying that people are getting fake COVID test report and why would anyone do that when people are literally dying as per the news reports i have seen and this is criminal and i have no idea how to react to these.

If he contested for the ruling party then why he did not get the permission to play in the IPL .

How do we even know whether a match is fixed or not, we only come to know if there is an investigation going on. Even if we placed a bet and lost the bet the money is gone and you are not getting your funds refund even if at a later time it is found that the particular match was fixed.

From Basketball(Specifically NBA) and other sports now cricket ?

Actually since i was young , I am hearing this issue but there are no proof at all , but now that there are easy way to prove about what's happening now.

with high tech gadgets and people willing to cooperate just to broadcast this? then yeah i think this is the true way of dealing in gambling and sports.

This is happening even before pandemic, fixed matches are being organized well so they can collect more money and put it directly on their pocket. Most of the top players are being paid for this one, they agreed to play under such fixed game even if its against their goals. Anyway, don't place your bet if you think the match is fixed so you wont lose money, we can also see such matches in Boxing nowadays.

Politics is definitely involved. Mohammad Azharuddin, who is regarded as the mastermind behind the match fixing scandals of the 90s went on to become a Member of Parliament with the Indian National Congress (who were in power back then). The master mind behind the IPL betting scandal is still owning powerful position within the BCCI. Sreesanth, who was acquitted by the court on spot-fixing allegation contested the election for the ruling BJP (but lost the polls and came third).

I am not surprised to read bout a match fixing in general, particularly not surprised that any short of fixing happens in India, where you can actually buy a certified negative COVID test from the f*ing laboratory that is certifying the results for just 20 extra bucks. Now, what I am really surprised is about them being caught and about how long took for the investigation to get there. There must be something political about all this, I just cannot see this as merely casual.

When it comes to conscience then dont expect that it would be somewhat relevant into these players since they wouldnt really care at all as long they would neither get money or popularity
on which this one matter most.

Match fixing cant really be known until it gets busted and its hard to determine until there's some news or proofs that had been showed in the public.
This is not common but it do really exist.

Fixed matches doesnt limit only to this sport but on other sports as well.

its dissapointing if you find out that theres a match fixing that happen but most of the time you wont figure it out and what you will expect is only a normal loss but losses are still dissapointing to the many .
i dont think its pure money but a player could be rich to not care for the money but they can use their money to stay in their current position .
some just want fame but this is shameful if they will find out and they can carry this until they get old of until they die

You are absolutely right. This is the kind of thing professionals do. They never discuss their cases on a mobile phone or on the internet. I assume that all meetings are held in a secure room where no outsider can get in. So proving anything is simply unrealistic.

Rigging in sports in not new anymore, the only thing you'll get after you paid the ticket is disappointment because the match has been fixed. The main reason behind it is all about money, because they could make a lot more money in match fixing rather than playing a clean match, I mean, who doesn't want easy money, right? Especially in this time of pandemic where we really need money to survive and sustain our daily needs as well as our bills monthly.

Due to the way the game is played, spot fixing in cricket, which involves only manipulating certain small segments of the match, wouldn't be that difficult to do and it can easily be concealed from those that don't need to know. Be it the federations and anti-gambling committees, or the fans. Unless there is proof that a player was bribed, or there are records of calls or SMS messages, how would you know about it. A player can always he played badly for this or that reason.     

Knowing that a documentary regarding match fixing do exist, I find it really unfathomable as to how deep the match fixing abyss is with a lot of powerful people involved in it, I will assume that it involves the whole organization. Pretty sad that knowing match fixing exist, you can't fully enjoy the game because at the back of your mind you think that the players aren't playing at their best.

Match fixing is a relatively new phenomenon, at least as far as cricket is concerned. It existed for many decades, but large scale match fixing started only when underworld gangs from India and Pakistan started their activities from UAE and the other Gulf nations (cricket match fixing is still under their monopoly). And given the popularity of cricket in the Indian subcontinent, and due to the fact that legalized gambling is not possible in India, the criminals soon seized on the opportunity and made it a multi-billion Dollar business. 

It is not something new to the table, Op. Matches were being fixed since the sport was born because every player has a weakness and these bookies or parties who don't want a specific team to win, bribe players either through money, girls or even drugs. You should watch an Indian web series called 'Inside Edge' because it has all the facts you should look into, and it is also related to gambling, but a corporate (insider) level gambling, not what we do.

OK guys.. so a few hours back, we had official response from the International Cricket Council (ICC), which is the global governing body for the sport of cricket. As expected, they have downplayed the allegations.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/icc-says-al-jazeera-s-allegations-implausible-concludes-investigation-1263319


A few of the big names were mentioned in the documentary, including international players Dilhara Lokuhettige of Sri Lanka and Pakistan player Hasan Raza. They will face no disciplinary action, either from the ICC, or from the regional boards.

True, which is yet another reason why I think this is way more common than what we could think, once you accept a bribe then those criminals know they have you and there is no way for you to escape their control, it is such a shame because even if I am not a fan of the sport to think there is so much cheating going on around the world of sports is discouraging as one of the reasons people like sports is that the competition has been made fair for both sides and we just want to see who is the best under those circumstances.

It doesn't matter whether he is a smaller fish because anyone can be a whistleblower. Those rumors, I am pretty has some truth in it because Cronje dying after ratting out the heads can't pass as a coincidence.

Cronje was just small fish. He was probably indulging in match fixing for the first time, and he got caught. The masterminds were Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. The bookies contacted the South African players through these guys. Cronje gave a statement that Mohammad Azharuddin was the intermediary when he met with the bookie Mukesh Gupta. Now Gupta was also a lower ring operative, and Dawood Ibrahim was the real mastermind of this operation. Rumors are that Dawood Ibrahim got Cronje killed for speaking out against Azharuddin. 

That's what most potential whistleblowers do, they sometimes die or disappear after the whole scandal unfolds and they could be the key for taking down the whole organization, this person isn't the last one that's going to suffer the same fate, match fixing is a serious money making business and they don't want people to meddle with their money making.

So they have a system to fix the game, this is so well organized, that you need a whistleblower to come out and exposed it, the $1.5 million per match is so huge that the organizations that manipulated the game will do everything to keep the game-fixing secret I don't think game-fixing is over in that region, as long as there is big money to be made and there are corrupt players and officials it will still exist, in our country basketball is very popular and we have a very strict regulation but still there's game-fixing because there's huge money to be made here if they can keep it well organize.

^^^ Not entirely accurate. Sreesanth was made a scapegoat and he was acquitted by the court. He fell out with some of the big names within the BCCI at that time, and that was the reason why these fake charges were framed against him, and his career was ruined. On the other hand, Mohammed Azharuddin was convicted of match fixing and he admitted to those charges. In your post, you are claiming that Sreesanth "was involved in match fixing" while Azhar was "just accused of match fixing". Actually it is the other way around. And Azhar went on to become a politician with the opposition party, after being proven his competence in fixing matches.

Thanks for the insight. I just noticed this article is from 2018. In India, there was a cricketer(Sreesanth) who was caught fixing a match and was banned for almost lifetime. There have been cricketers from India who have been at least accused of fixing(Md. Azharuddin). It is very hard to catch those signals I suppose as they could very well be interpreted as natural things to do. Like removing their helmet or gloves to dry themselves, or a change in bat. Sreesanth was caught due to wire tapping of phones and revealed the signal was that he'd put his hand drying towel, which is usually on the players back, he'd put it up forward in his 2nd over of his spell as indication that he'd bowl poorly.

I hoped there would be some names involved in the article but there werent and I dont think they could have arrested the players on that regard unless they had and audio or visual confirmation that they player had actually accepted to fix. Since bowling poorly could be natural as well.

Completely agreed. I still remember the incident that once occurred in the United States. The owner of one of the NBA teams (Donald Sterling, who owned the LA Clippers) was banned from the game for life and was forced to sell his franchise after it was revealed that he made some racist remarks. Unfortunately such strong actions are not possible with the IPL, since the franchise owners are too powerful. Only the players are being made scapegoats and the unsuspecting viewers still watch the matches thinking that they are real.

Once a gambler always a gambler, these people who never cared about their reputation or the integrity of the team gambled and yet they are able to keep the team and i think they got a much lesser punishment than the players who were caught during that period and Sreesanth was also caught during that period if i am not wrong along with other players and they never played cricket after that while the owners who might have forced their players got out of the mess easily .

It is possible that some of the matches are fixed and until we hear from the media or these information are leaked we are not going to find that out and seriously they are disrespecting the fans who are wasting their time and money to watch the game.

Some of the claims are too outlandish to be true, such as the involvement of the English players in 2016. But recently Heath Streak was banned for fixing some matches during the period mentioned here. Also, the article states this:


Heath Streak perfectly fits the description. Now there are some articles about his involvement:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/apr/14/heath-streak-handed-eight-year-ban-for-breaching-icc-anti-corruption-code
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/heath-streak-handed-eight-year-ban-for-breaching-icc-anti-corruption-code-1258953

Now here is another incident, which corresponds to the period mentioned in this article (this time in Sri Lanka):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_cricket_pitch_fixing_and_betting_scandal

This was going on for many years, before coming to light in 2018.

Thank you for your inputs!

Based on your name, I can safely assume that you are from one of the regions where cricket is very popular, am I right? Are you familiar with this scandal that the Al Jazeera reporters stumbled upon? Were there any investigations carried out by governing bodies, and were any of the involved players or staff members suspended or jailed?

I would be interested in hearing about it from someone who absolutely knows what he is talking about. 

^^^^

@Pmalek. I would assume that most of the users here don't have an idea about the game of cricket. That is natural, given the fact that it is a sport that is mostly confined to South Asia (especially India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). If cricket is being played in other countries, it is mostly done by expats from the South Asian region. Now for those who are not familiar with cricket - match fixing is very prevalent in this sport. In football, FIFA has managed to almost wipeout match fixing. But the corresponding governing body has failed to do the same in cricket. And that is partly because the governing body itself is being headed by corrupt people like Greg Barclay and Sharad Pawar.

I don't know how the affair ended. I didn't do any research about the aftermath of the revelations. Someone who follows cricket with a bit more passion would certainly be able to give you better answers.

This is what I know:

The Internationa Cricket Council asked Al Jazeera to send them all the documented "evidence" they gathered so they can investigate the case. I have no idea what the result of those investigations were and if there were any at all. Again, someone more interested in the sport should be able to tell you more.

Make sure you read the other posts in this thread because several members mentioned that certain players and clubs were banned from the sport in different periods of time.

Why is it so difficult to prove? If a player or a franchise owner is receiving money that he can't explain, that should be taken as an evidence, right? Recently Heath Streak of Zimbabwe was handed out suspension, after it was found that he received 2 BTC from a bookie, in order to fix some of the franchise T20 matches. All the evidence was there, in the form of Bitcoin transactions and the logs from the cryptocurrency exchange which was used by Streak to convert these Bitcoins to fiat.

They know how to bribe the right people and they know how to keep it secret it's part of the plan, the worst thing is someone become a whistle blower, there's even a threat if they come out and tell it all, hiding it and keeping all involve quiet are part of the plan, if they failed to do this, all involved will be in trouble.

In my opinion it is very difficult to prove that a player or his management was involved in a match-fixing operation. In addition, there is often corruption in law enforcement and minimal publicity plays into the hands of these types of scammers. Maybe that's why we don't see so many high-profile match-fixing cases.

For the players, there is always a risk of ruining their career. Even those accused of fake charges have lost their career, and Sreesanth is a perfect example. But for the franchise owners, it looks as if they are not risking anything by fixing matches of their own team. Even if they are caught, the powerful people will come to their rescue, like we saw in 2015. IPL betting is very widespread even now, and involves billions of USD every season. But I am not sure whether the matches are still getting fixed or not. Given the fact that those who were accused in the 2015 scandal are still owning the teams, I will not discount any such possibility.

In Indian Premier Leagle (IPL) also it happened and two teams were banned for 2 years for their owners involved in wrong doings like fixing or something like that.And still people claims that the match-fixing happening in IPL and the whole cricket community but it doesn't look like any longer after 2018 and later in my opinion.

Whenever I hear match fixing in cricket I remember Hansie Cronje, the ex south african captain. What a good batsman he was but everything got ruined after it was found that he was part of a big match fixing syndicate. Unfortunately he died in a air crash before big names could have come out.

I saw this documentary quite a while ago. Not shocking to say the least.

A lot of these smaller leagues are created for the sole purpose of enriching the founder of the leagues as well as insiders who have access to the players. And the easiest way to do that is to arrange match fixes with players and teams directly.

Even tests and ODIs can be fixed, although probably nowhere near the scale of the fixing that is going on in domestic T20s. Poorly paid international cricketers are notorious for match fixing scandals in the past (SA, Pakistan, etc.)

So you think that match fixing is done with the knowledge from the higher officials, i think it is highly unlikely. BCCI conducted the IPL in UAE which included Emirates such as Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi and if there is fixing it cannot be isolated to one region. Pakistan players were caught when they were involved in spot fixing in a match in England and the rules are strict as these players has to risk their career and the fortune they can make through cricket.

These are all words, guesses, assumptions and coincidences. If there are facts, then where are the criminal cases and court decisions? As for coincidences, there are a lot of them in life and often they seem incredible. Even in individual sports matches, something happens that is remembered for decades (like the loss of Bavaria to Manchester United in the Champions League final on the last minutes).

Match fixing for the money will always exist because they are talking about money, and standing there so as long as there’s money involve, game fixing can happen anytime. Recently we have issues in our local sports about game fixing, and the team and the players are being punished for that without further investigation, the sports committee should be more strict on this one not unless they are also part of this which is also possible to happen.

The players in cricket are already paid good salaries. The issue is that they found other ways to manipulate the scores in their favor, like bribing groundsmen to make the pitch fit for either batsmen or bowlers. The groundsmen couldn't care less, the money they get for manipulating just one match is equal to years and years of working and maintaining the pitch.

The problem with taking a bribe, is that they won't stop after only one time. If you help them make money once, they'll have you by your balls and force you to comply to their demands all the time, otherwise they'll expose you, destroy your career, and have you banned. Some players probably don't think that far ahead, and think why not do it once for an unimportant tournament. After doing it once, it turns into a nightmare. 

Emirates such as Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi are considered as main operating grounds of the cricket match fixing mafias. And this is one of the reasons why the BCCI decided not to stage any triangular or quadrilateral tournaments there anymore. But now the fixing has spread to other parts of the world as well. And ever since people like Srinivasan and Sharad Pawar got power within the BCCI/ICC, there has been an increase in such incidents.

Not only in Dubai and Sri Lanka, but it also exists in many countries where there are corrupt officials and dishonest players unless there are whistleblowers, they can always get away, what we read and documented are those exposed but there are many fixed games that are not exposed and those who participated made huge money, there's a lot of money top be made in game fixing.

Those cricket match fixers didn't share any information with the general public either. But they did cooperate with 20-30 wealthy businessmen who were willing to pay the syndicate plenty of money for insider information about fixed match segments. They could have probably stayed under the radar for longer had they not done that, but the potential to earn even more money made them not care that much.

In one part of the video interview, the investigator asks his point of contact, what about the ICC. The syndicate member replies something like: If you have enough money, you can do anything. You can interpret that however you want. To me it sounds like there is a price that can be paid even to the ICC to turn a blind eye and not look in your direction. 

I think there are too many coincidences for it not be real. Players and ex-players were certainly involved because some of them even appear in the video. At one meeting, the reporter wanted assurances that the players would do what the syndicate asks them too. And one professional player who sits at the table tells the reporter that's the whole point. We will fix the matches the way the scenarios have been laid out because we are all interested in the same thing, making money.   

In some cases people are sentenced to several years in prison for match-fixing, add to that various disqualifications and we'll see that the penalties are severe enough to stop this unlawful and shameful activity. Only it's enough for people with brains. There's always a moron who will still be doing it.

Unfortunately this is the sad reality of many sports, the mafia can be extremely effective to get cooperation from athletes, after all if they do not cooperate they can always go against them or their family and most people will take the money even if they do not want, this thread should be a great eye opener, rigging games is thought to be something that happens occasionally but as we see here there is a great chance that this is way more common than what we think.

This kind of cheating happens around the world since there's a big money involve their, this kind of doings makes the sports boring. I hope government will file a bill which give more heavy penalties to the person involve on this doings since if they let this happen again and again then then provably people will lost interest to watch them.

But for those who are a shareholder of clubs, sponsors of leagues, etc. that is, being a guy with really big money is unprofitable foul play since it diminishes interest in the sport if such facts are revealed. Control at this level is achieved in other ways - the rules of budgeting and other restrictions for the participants of the competition more or less equalize their chances and the audience gets an interesting (equal) rivalry. Of course, this applies to team competitions.

Their suspensions show you that the game of Cricket is not as fair as you thought it is. Even if all indicators point towards a segment of the game being fixed, it still has to be proven and that is not necessarily an easy thing to do. In theory, the whole game can be fair besides the segment when one batsman is out to play. Players can underperform even without being bribed. Huge bets placed on a particular batsman and run total is a good indication, but still not definite proof that there is match fixing involved.

I think I understood what you are trying to say. When the documentary talked about how cricket groundsmen get bribed for manipulating the pitch, it was said that the match fixing fee they receive for one match is equal to 8 years of wages they earn by doing their regular job. And that's the problem. They are paid too little, and hence the possibility of getting involved in illegal business ventures increases dramatically. 

The member of the gambling syndicate tells the reporter in the video that 3 players from the English side were bribed and will manipulate the score. 

The $60.000 was the money the reporter was supposed to pay to receive the tip about the fix, nothing else. I don't think it was mentioned in the video how much bribe money the players allegedly received. Also, the entire team wouldn't know about the fix. Only 3 players were allegedly involved. Therefore, the money isn't divided equally amongst all players. The way it works is they usually make a deal with a player. Let's say the deal is you will get $100.000 for batting badly, and that's it. The entire match is not fixed, only the segment when that particular player bats. It would be equal to bribing a football player who takes free kicks to always hit the wall when he shoots. But imagine you can bet on the outcome of the freekick. You aren't fixing the match, and your team might still win, you are just shooting like shit on purpose.   

No, of course not, they just followed the game and pretended they made a huge profit from it. The deal was the money would be given to an intermediary and released in their next meeting after the reporter (who pretended to be a businessman) received the tips and made the bets. The segment they received the tip for played out exactly as the syndicate member said it would. At the next meeting, the reporter said who he was, they brought out the cameras, and revealed the whole thing.

Interesting information to think about.

Sports games have long been a business, and as you know the guys with big money like to control everything. So I am not at all surprised by match-fixing. Moreover, I believe that this kind of manipulation takes place in all countries.

Teach our future generations the value of integrity and not being shadowed over by corruption, we will slowly be able to destroy the mentality and the business of rigging sports. Also, if we put a more sharper fangs on laws that are prosecuting game fixing/rigging then we will reduce people trying to do it since they know how serious it is.

Sports bodies such as FIFA and FIH took great care to eradicate the curse of match fixing with their respective sports. But the ICC is not very successful in repeating the same with cricket. One reason may be the presence of businessmen and politicians with various cricket boards. These people don't care about the sport and just want to make as much money as possible. The ICC have banned players for life, for taking part in match fixing. But their treatment is much more mild, when powerful people are involved. Remember what happened when the CSK management was caught in 2015, along with the RR bosses. The team was allowed back in to the IPL after just two years. Why it is always life ban for the players and just two years suspension for the franchises?

Sat through the entire video and it was a treat to watch, I remember betting regularly on cricket matches few years back but never had an idea that it could be rigged through their own ways.

Just like what they said in the video, they do it because there's money to be made and some tournaments are less regulated than the others then at the same time sportsbooks are offering odds on those matches. Recently there's some investigation going on in the esports scene as well where one of the players got exposed due to some disagreements with his previous organization.

Thing is, they looked for those who match fixed cricket matches only to find something way bigger imo. Nothing new about match-fixing, but I think this is rather big for it to have been ignored at that point? I mean, if the broker claims to be able to influence that much amount of tournaments, then the legal team behind the tournament should have done something already, that is unless they're all in it together. Not really that updated on crickets, but was this even investigated properly? After all the article is pretty old.

Match fixing was always prevalent in cricket. The entry of franchise T20 leagues have worsened the situation. A few years back, two of the franchises were suspended, after it was found that their own owners were involved in match fixing. And back then, one of the franchise owners was the president of the BCCI (N Srinivasan). He quickly hushed up the matters and refused any further investigation. Unfortunately it is an example of what happens, when the cricket boards are under the control of politicians and businessmen, rather than former players.

I feel like this sort of thing is becoming more common over the years in professional sports. Before 20 years ago this sort of thing would have been unheard of. Shoeless Joe Jackson is still known 100 years later for pulling this sort of stunt. I’m not sure if there’s any way to stop this from happening. Even if they paid the players more the criminals would just target the officials. It’s a serious problem that undermines sports as well as gamblers.

Actually I don't like cricket matches. But I found your title very interesting. I don't know what is the name of the official agency that manages the cricket league. But the administrators should have given very harsh penalties for the match fixers. Indeed, in any match I think there are bookies who bet, but let it happen naturally. There is no need for any arrangement, it will be more interesting. Does anyone know how the case goes? how about the punishment?

I'm not a cricket specialist, but this whole story looks fantastic. As far as I understand, no one has direct evidence and no criminal cases have been initiated, right? I do not believe in the reality of the events described by journalists. By the way, if they really paid someone to find out the result of the match fixing, perhaps they were simply deceived (the result that was predicted was obtained for natural reasons) by a fraudster who invented all these stories about the syndicate.

After all this big scandal regarding fixed and rigged matches, I don't hear any news yet that someone from a "big organization" got jailed or penalized. It does, only a few I guess. Most likely at these cases, the participants such as player and staffs are the ones received a big penalty and violation.


It's a cooking game wherein there's a possibility that both parties are not aware there's an unusual thing happening. Far from rigged games wherein players are involved directly. One more example is the controversial NBA 2002 Western Conference Finals match between Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers. I'm sure the Lakers' players won't be involved in a rigged game but there might be someone "much higher" who wants the Lakers to win at all cost.

Even worst was when I heard the news that Amir has been allowed to play again (because he was under age at the times of involving in match fixing). I respect and admire Amir as a player but match-fixing should have no place in the sport, especially at the international level.

There were some videos made viral about a small league where players were acting comical and throwing the game but at the international level, you just cannot do it, if you do and get caught you shouldn't be allowed to enter the sport again ever.

This is the first time i am hearing about pitch fixing with the help of groundsman  . Spot fixing is lucrative and big rollers are trying to take advantage of these loopholes but what i did not see is that despite all these revelations by the channel i have not seen any charges against anyone. Did the ICC investigate these issues because i cannot see any article that says about charges against anyone and these are serious allegation. 

Any sport where people can bet will have chances of rigging.
I even wonder if UFC is rigged at times because some of the decisions given by the judges are hilariously funny and concerning.

I remember a fight recently concluded where one judge had the fight 30-26 for one fighter and the other judge had it something like 30-27 for the other. I know a 29-28 can happen but how can two judges be so different on the same fight that one scores it as 30-27 and the other scored it as 30-26 for the opponent.

So now here we are, recently it is Basketball that has been tackled about being Rigged and now it is One of the famous sports in the world are entering this badly manipulated  games?

no wonder that this is happening in all sports ?

For those who had able to know those information then they would just simply shut off their mouths or also being bribe on not to talk about on  what they do know this is why
its common that those rigging incidents wont really go into public until it would be bust out by someone who cant really be handled on not to speak about it.
This one isnt already surprising and can happen from time to time without being knowing on what is actually under those curtains.

I have only read the article, maybe the video says something different - but the two matches that were supposedly confirmed as being fixed were "Sri Lanka versus India in July last year and Sri Lanka versus Australia in August 2016."

A third match, it is claimed in the article, was meant to fix a match between India v England at the Sri Lanka stadium - but that was not fully confirmed. I must have missed the allegation that it was the English side who would fix the match, as it does not seem to confirm which side would be cheating in this way.

It's always interesting reading about these sort of scandals and it is possible that I overlooked it, but you seem to be making a false allegation that the English team was involved. I have no doubt that the English players have the capacity to cheat, but reading that $60,000 was all it took set alarm bells off. Considering all the people that would need to be paid with that money, it doesn't seem to be worth anywhere near the risk for such a low amount from a professional cricketer perspective. Also, the sum of $60,000 being paid by the Al Jazeera reporter seems unusually high in order to prove a story as legitimate? Did the reporter or source of funds end up taking advantage of the fraudulent betting knowledge to make the money back?

Wow, some really excellent read and I want to add a few more things about how matches are rigged and could be rigged in my opinion.

There are countless fantasy sites and while some of them allow you to modify the team after the toss most of them will not allow you to make any changes to your picked players about 30 mins before the match. ( at toss we get to know the players playing today )

So basically some teams will drop some key players and include some new faces, this information is given to the bettors prior and they can pick those players who anyone would not even dream of picking.

Non-cricket followers can imagine as if you know LeBron James won't play tonight and you have some inside information. These things are happening countless times in small leagues and fantasy cricket is rigged as hell.

I think only football has had a fixing scandal. It turns out that this news opened my eyes if all matches were very likely to be arranged. Their network is so wide, many people are involved. I think gambling on the game is perfectly reasonable, but let it work its way. The owner of power is supposed to evaluate all match equipment. Maybe an oath and a salary more than enough to avoid this bit of cheating.

In my country there have been cases but in football. They set the score for the results of the match. After it was discovered that the perpetrators were punished, the players who became actors were not allowed to play in soccer for life.

International cricket involving the test nations is mostly free from match fixing now. It would have happened a decade ago, but not now. The ICC has strict monitoring mechanism in place and this prevents any sort of match fixing from happening in international matches. But I can't guarantee the same, with matches involving smaller teams such as UAE and Zimbabwe. In fact multiple members of the UAE national team were suspended recently, for their involvement in match fixing.

Match fixing is not a big surprise and we know that it is happening and we will only come to know about the specifics of that only when we see these sort of revelations comes out or as part of investigative journalism. The Pakistan fixing situation came to light which implicated Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir for spot fixing when the mobile phone was given for repairing and the service person found these chat messages detailing the specifics of the fix and that is how they were able to prosecute them, we are yet to hear anyone in the match you mentioned getting prosecuted yet and this is the first time i am hearing about these specific matches.

this is disturbing and disgusting. one of the saddest part here is that Aneel Munawar is still not arrested(since I haven't found anything regarding his arrest). reading through the article it's clear that there are members of ICC that are in cahoots with Aneel Munawar and that is why they only decided to take action after Aneel Muwanar has been exposed by Aljazeera undercover.

Match fixing is always a big scandal. There are many cases even in other games as well. In India, there were couple of cases surfaced in late 90s which actually put a hold on few famous cricketers' career including a long standing cricket team captain Md. Azharuddin.

Match fixing has happened in IPL as well and a lot of crickets were permanently banned from IPL for the rest of their life. These kind of fixing are usually done by someone extremely wealthy who can pay for the cricketers as well as bet to an extent where they recover the money and make profit out of it.

That's a negative side of gambling!

I was stunned when the syndicate members explained that they have the power to influence 60-70% of the international test matches. Cricket is a popular sports in many parts of the world with millions of fans attending and watching those matches. Imagine sitting there, having paid for an expensive ticket, only to realize that the players you cheer on are bribed to underperform?

The organization has no intentions to stop. One of the organizers said he doesn't want to do it once and leave. He wants to set up a huge network to be able to influence the majority of matches in many parts of the world. 

Damn, that was a well-prepared rigged game!

There is really no reason for this rigged game not to happen if the big mafia will be involved.

The news was posted in May 2018, I wonder what's the status of the case now 3 years later on.

Cricket match-fixers is about an 18-months investigation carried out by reporters from Al Jazeera about a match-fixing scandal in cricket in 2016-2017. I haven’t heard about this incident until now and watched the documentary for the first time this morning.
 
 
An investigator went undercover pretending to be a businessman looking for insider information about fixed cricket matches at the highest level. The Al Jazeera reporter met a member of an underground match-fixing syndicate in a hotel in India. The entire meeting was videotaped with hidden cameras. The individual is a member of D-Company, a crime organization involved in drug trafficking, illegal sale of weapons, racketeering, human trafficking, and illegal gambling and match-fixing. 
 
Al Jazeera discovered that the crime syndicate collaborates with many players from various cricket national teams. The gang makes bets that the players on their payroll will underperform in specific game segments known as overs. It’s possible to bet on the total number of runs in those overs. The players get bribed to bat badly so that the criminal organization can profit from making bets that the total number of runs will be below the score offered by the bookies.
 
This type of match-fixing can be successful with just a few players from a particular team. Every time your player bats, he will perform according to the instructions given to him by the criminal organization. The final outcome of the match doesn’t interest the syndicate.
 
The reporter slowly builds his trust with the organization because they believed that he was a serious investor looking to make huge profits. He was introduced to other match-fixers who are ex-cricket players who played for their national teams. They told him that players request on average $70.000 to fix an over/under in a cricket match. The elite teams receive up to $1 million. 
 

How do the games get fixed?
 
A fixed match is confirmed on the day it’s played. The organizers tell the reporter that players are advised to make a signal that the fix is on. The sign is agreed before, and it can be anything. The player puts on a pair of sunglasses or a headband, he takes a pause to remove or fix his shin pads, etc. When the syndicate sees the sign, they have final confirmation the player will do as agreed. The match betting then starts.
 
They explain to the reporter that they are dealing with a small number of wealthy businessmen who use the insider information provided to them by the criminal organization to make up to $1.5 million per match.   
 
In a different kind of scheme, the match-fixers discuss how they bribe groundsmen to manipulate the cricket pitch to be better suited for either bowlers or batsmen. If the pitch gets “fixed” for bowlers, the batsmen will get ejected more quickly, and the match won’t end in a draw. One team will win. The betting syndicate lays a draw and bets against the game ending in a draw.
 

Matches that were fixed
 
On 16 December 2016, a test match between India and England began. A few players from England were bribed to fix this match. The Al Jazeera reporter paid the syndicate member $60.000 to receive information on what markets to bet on for India vs England. On the day of the fix, the investigator received a call with details about which over to bet on. The deal was that the batsman will score below the total offered by the bookies. The prediction comes true.
 
A match between Sri Lanka and India was fixed on 26 July 2017 by the groundsman. The pitch was manipulated to suit batsmen. The pitch was intentionally made hard so batsmen can get more hits and record more runs. The betting syndicate placed bets on over runs for the first team that was batting. A different match between Sri Lanka – Australia was fixed oppositely. The pitch was prepared to not favour batsmen, so they would have difficulties hitting the balls properly.
 
 
Watch the rest of the documentary where the syndicate members provide details of how they plan to fix an international cricket tournament in Dubai with members of all teams owned and controlled by the mafia organization.
 
Have you heard of this betting scandal before, and what is your opinion of all this? 
 
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2018/5/26/exclusive-cricket-match-fixers-caught-in-the-act-in-sri-lanka