More to corruption in cricket than we know - Strauss | Login via 
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| (ESPNcricinfo)
May 25, 2011
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England Test captain Andrew Strauss has said while there is "more to" corruption in cricket "than we know about", he had not seen "any resolve" in dealing with the problem and that people in charge of tackling the issue are "woefully under-resourced". England's last Test series at home, against Pakistan, was marred by the spot-fixing controversy and Strauss believed not enough was being done to eliminate corruption in the game.
"Clearly most of the betting seems to go on in the sub-continent but I wouldn't say it was just sub-continental players that are involved," Strauss told the London Evening Standard. "My gut feeling is there is more to it than we know about.
"It is a very difficult thing to deal with but I don't think that's an excuse not to try to deal with it. I haven't seen any resolve to deal with the issue. It is hard for me to comment because I don't know what's going on behind closed doors.
"The only input I've had is with the anti-corruption people who came round during the World Cup. It seems to me that they are woefully under-resourced. I just don't think they've got the resources to do it properly."
Salman Butt, Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif were banned by the ICC after an independent tribunal found them guilty of orchestrating three pre-planned, deliberate no-balls during the Lord's Test against England last August. Soon after the allegations against the trio surfaced, Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, claimed England's players had taken "enormous amounts of money" to lose the third ODI at The Oval. Butt apologised for his comments later, but Strauss admitted England nearly pulled out of the next game.
Even though England accepted Butt's apology and withdrew the threat of legal action, Strauss said he had been "quite emotional" about the accusation. "My original view was our integrity had been brought into question. We got quite close to not playing the one-dayer at Lord's. But over the course of the evening it became a lot clearer to me that actually the right thing to do was to play. We didn't feel overjoyed to be playing the game or that series but we got through it."
Strauss said he hoped the spot-fixing controversy would trigger efforts to eliminate corruption in the game, but added, "they certainly don't seem to be getting anywhere nearer to the bottom of the whole spot fixing/match-fixing saga."
A compact left-hander with a preference for pummelling the ball square off the back foot with a crunching cut, Andrew Strauss has worked out a superb technique for Test cricket. He put early problems against Shane Warne behind him to make two hundreds in the epic 2005 Ashes series, and added another big one (161) in 2009 to set up England's first victory over the old enemy at Lord's since 1934. Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart, by contrast, only ever managed one century apiece against Australia.
Calm and urbane, Strauss put the disappointment of being passed over as England's captain for the 2006-07 Ashes series - probably a godsend, as it turned out, as even Doctor Who would have had trouble with those rampant whitewash-bound Aussies - to bounce back in 2009 and orchestrate the recapture of the urn. The following year, he joined the elite of English cricket by leading a successful Ashes defence in Australia, triumphing 3-1 to end a 24-year wait for victory Down Under.
