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Change Your Life! |
The new dos and don’ts for cricketers |
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News |
July 5, 2000
COLOMBO (AP) - At 9 p.m., when cricket players must turn in for bed, a Pakistani official checks the phone log at a Colombo hotel, looking for calls made or received by his Pakistani cricketers.
On another floor, the manager of the Sri Lankan team makes sure that his players don't carry cellular phones.
In yet another corner, a South African consultant reads out the do's and dont's to the players from his country.
Life has changed for the cricketers after the outbreak of the match- fixing scandal which led to the firing of South African captain Hansie Cronje.
Sleuths are seeking the help of the hotel staff to keep the bookies at bay. Keeping fans at bay is no longer their only concern.
"Now our main job is to keep the bookies away. We have posted people at elevator landings and they identify hotel guests. Others are not just allowed," said S. Abahayasekara, chief security officer of Oberoi Hotel.
South Africa, Pakistan and host Sri Lanka are all set to participate in a triangular one-day tournament beginning Wednesday.
"I am very very strict and I am not going to allow even a fly to get near our boys," said Brig.
Mohammad Nasir, the manager of the Pakistani team, rejecting concerns that the bookies may reach his players.
"I check all phone calls to be sure that the boys are not approached," Nasir, who retired from the army five years ago, told The Associated Press.
Nasir goes through the phone log every day.
Niel Perera, manager of the Sri Lankan team, keeps cellular phones away from his players. "This is one of the measures we have taken to see that the name of the game is not tarnished any further," said Dhamika Ranatunga, the chief executive of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board.
"We had a long talk with all the players and told them that they may be clean, but that does not stop the bookies from making the first move," Ranatunga said. "I am proud to say that our boys are absolutely clean."
Doug Russell, manager of the South African team, tell his players to remain alert and report any incident to him immediately.
"We have suffered enough by Cronje's case and we are determined to see that this is not repeated again," Russell said.
But the fear of bookies lurks in the minds of cricket lovers.
"Obviously there are those who will be skeptical of South African cricket and we will try to clear that suspicion by giving 120 percent," South African captain Shaun Pollock told reporters in the Sri Lankan capital.
The current tournament is South Africa's first since Cronje plunged cricket into its worst-ever crisis by admitting he took close to dlrs 100,000 in bribes from bookmakers.
Pollock, who succeeded Cronje, said the pressure on him was worse now than when he first took up the job.
"At first the allegations were about pitch and weather information, but now we are talking about match-fixing and that makes it all the more difficult," he said.
The scandal erupted in April when the Indian police charged Cronje and three other South African players with "cheating, fraud and criminal conspiracy" during a tour of India earlier this year.
Cronje first denied the charges, but later admitted that he had taken money in return for information about matches. He still denies that he ever fixed the results.
"No player on any team I lead will have anything to do with this controversy," said Pollock.
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