Respected cricket journalist Robert ‘Crash’ Craddock isn’t convinced by the latest report suggesting Australian batsman were involved in alleged cases of match-fixing.
According to a documentary aired by Al Jazeera, two Australian batsman have been accused of taking bribes by an Indian crime syndicate in order to underperform in a Test match against India in Ranchi last year.
Craddock says the accusations levelled at the Australian’s lack credibility as there’s unsubstantiated evidence to back up the claims.
“It’s a common theme of braggers and big noters trying to sell their story to an unwitting cashed up identity who wants to pay big money to fix a game,” he told SEN’s Whateley.
“The Australian players being corrupted? I’ll take some convincing on that one, I have my doubts.
“In 23-years of following this story – the corruption in cricket, yes we’ve seen Mark Waugh and Shane Warne take money from book makers for information.
“But I’ve never seen one scrap of evidence which says to me that an Australian player is guilty of match-fixing.
“Even the throw away comment where batsman allegedly give hints: oh look he’s taking his helmet off again. It was about 38 degrees – they were sweltering in the Ranchi heat.
“I know the identity of those two batsman and I wouldn’t know what their collective worth would be, but it would be millions, millions and millions of dollars.
“And what? You’re going to get them to throw a game for their country for a couple of hundred thousand?
“I’ll believe it when I see it, I really will.
“May I say, if anyone comes to us at News Corp with credible information about Australian games fixing games, we’ll have zero sympathy for them and we’ll be all over it.
“As we were 20-years ago when the Saleem Malik story broke, but there’s so much rumour and baseless innuendo out there.
“They were battling to save a test match, of course the run rate slows at the end of the day.”
Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has unsurprisingly denied the match-fixing claims and it’s understood Cricket Australia have contacted the players regarding the allegations.
Listen to Robert Craddock's chat on SEN's Whateley with Gerard Whateley in the player below