MCC Committee Recommends Life Bans For Corruption

MCC Committee Recommends Life Bans For Corruption

Under recommendations made by the MCC World Cricket Committee, Salman Butt (centre) would have been banned for life last year

©REUTERS / Action Images

The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) World Cricket Committee has concluded its first meeting of 2012, highlighting corruption in cricket as the most important topic covered during the two days in Cape Town.

The meeting was attended by the Committee's newest member - Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara - and also heard from Sir Ronnie Flanagan and Tim Rice.

Flanagan is the chairman of the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) while May is chairman of the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations.

The Committee makes the following ten recommendations to the ACSU:

1 - Lifetime bans for any captain, vice-captain or coach found guilty of corruption.
2 - Consider the removal of minimum sentences in the ICC’s anti-corruption code.
3 - Education materials and punishments at international level should be mirrored at domestic level.  These materials should be enhanced, multi-lingual and available in more player-friendly formats.
4 - The ACSU should work closely with players to establish trust and be transparent with its findings to show the cricketing world that its efforts to prevent corruption are working.  The committee appreciates that transparency has to be balanced by the requirements of confidentiality.
5 - Young but established players, both international and domestic, and their captains, should be promoted as ambassadors of the Spirit of Cricket and role models who pledge to educate and protect other young players.
6 - Where not already in place, specific anti-corruption clauses should be included in players’, officials’, coaches’ and administrators’ contracts.
7 - The committee is keeping an open mind on the use of polygraphs, but for now does not recommend that their use be encouraged except as a possible route by which suspected players might attempt to exonerate themselves.
8 - ‘Mystery shopper’ operations should be considered, preferably directed at somebody already suspected.
9 - Relevant authorities to explore any unexplained wealth of suspected players and each governing body should hold a gift register for its players.
10 - The ACSU to have an increased capacity and budget to be able to do its job thoroughly, including the analysis of all domestic and international televised matches.

They have also called for the ICC to make public Lord Woolf's ICC Governance Review when it is published next week and urges the ICC to enforce uniformity on the implementation of the Decision Review System (DRS).

Currently, the decision on whether DRS is used and to what extent lies with the governing boards of competing countries, which has led to different playing conditions.

"It is wrong that there are such different playing conditions – that the DRS is not used when India play," the Committee said.

"It supports the ICC’s efforts to maintain and improve the DRS along the lines – reviews initiated by the players – that have been established so far."

The Committee is said it is 'unanimously disappointed' that there will be no World Test Championship until at least 2017 after the 2013 event was postponed.

"A World Test Championship would, crucially, provide additional context for Test cricket," the statement added.

"The committee is and continues to be convinced that Test cricket is the pinnacle of the sport, and that it needs to be encouraged and marketed in every way possible."

The committee has also urged the ICC to invite 16 teams rather than 12 to participate in future editions of the ICC World Twenty20.

The MCC World Cricket Committee is an independent voice in world cricket that meets twice a year and was set up in 2006.

The Committee is made up of current and former players, coaches, umpires and administrators and is chaired by former England captain Mike Brearley.

© Cricket World 2012