London, May 26 (IANS) England Test captain Andrew Strauss has asked his teammates to come forward and report any suspected attempts at match fixing as it is the players duty to curb the menace.
Strauss returns for the first Test against Bangladesh at the Lord’s Thursday amid allegations from an unnamed county player that he was approached by an Indian bookmaker to influence a one-day game this season.
The player has remained anonymous because of fears about his safety. The Professional Cricketers’ Association is liaising with the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit on his behalf.
‘We have a duty if we hear of (match fixing) in domestic cricket or with England to come forward and report it straight away. For players to be tempted to take bookmakers’ money is ludicrous. From my experience, I haven’t seen anything in the Middlesex dressing room or had any reason to suspect that a game I have played in has been fixed in any way. If it is happening, it needs to be stamped out straight away,’ Strauss was quoted as saying in the Guardian Wednesday.
The warning last week by Lord Condon, the outgoing head of the anti-corruption unit, that match-fixing and spot-fixing – where bets are placed on individual moments of a game – represent a risk to English domestic cricket comes less than a week before the start of England’s Twenty20 tournament.
Strauss said he was happy to be back in the side after England won the World Twenty20 under Paul Collingwood.
‘I’m excited to be back among the group again,’ he said.
‘After all they have achieved, there is a real vibrancy in the team. It is important that I give good, strong leadership. As for my batting, hopefully I can hit the ground running.’
