FEARS are mounting the Indian Premier League could be a haven for corruption as the International Cricket Council last night revealed its security officers were unlikely to attend the billion-dollar Twenty20 tournament.
This development comes as the ICC declared it would establish a code of ethics for IPL franchise owners in a bid to guard against corruption.
The ICC assigns an anti-corruption and security officer to all international series, but while the IPL is an ICC-sanctioned event with international players, it technically is a domestic Twenty20 tournament.
That means it is unlikely to be monitored, in person, by anti-corruption officers.
Illegal gambling on cricket remains a major problem, particularly on the subcontinent, where it is estimated up to $500 million is handled on each one-day international, a staggering figure that increases to $1 billion during the World Cup.
This concern was reinforced yesterday when Indian police closed down a betting ring in Bangalore which allegedly accepted millions in bets during Friday's clash between Australia and Sri Lanka at the MCG.
While ICC officials are adamant the days of pure "match-fixing" are over, they have suspicions some players still accept money from bookies for team information or to underperform.
This could be something like finding out batting and bowling orders, or a player agreeing to bowl a wide in a certain over.
Such is the frenetic pace of Twenty20 cricket, some high-level officials are privately worried it could be extremely hard to detect questionable on-field incidents in IPL matches.
An ICC spokesman said last night the ICC would work closely with the IPL to ensure it was a "clean" tournament.
"The ICC will consult with the Board of Control for Cricket in India to ensure that anti-corruption and anti-doping processes are put in place for the IPL -- and that a code of ethics be established for the owners of the teams," he said.
"The ACSU (Anti-Corruption and Security Unit) provides advice and support to all our members but is not necessarily present during those members' domestic tournaments, such as the English County Championship, the Pura Cup in Australia or, in this instance, the IPL in India."
Worldwide players' union boss Tim May said Twenty20 cricket was at a higher risk of corruption than Test and one-day internationals.
"The shorter the format, the higher the potential risk that a single performance can affect the overall result," May said.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23275616-2882,00.html
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