Exerpt: Marvyn Westfield has pleaded guilty to accepting £6,000 to concede 12 runs in his first over in a match between Essex and Durham at Chester-le-Street in September 2009.
Mervyn Westfield has proved today that, shamefully, corruption is very much a part of English cricket.
For those of us who think that spot-fixing is a passtime of merely a few people abroad, the actions of the former Essex all-rounder has proved that this is not the case. As the first player from this country to be convicted of corruption, Westfield exposed the frailties of the anti-corruption measures in the English game, while also moving the spotlight from Pakistani cricket onto this country.
As sad as it was to witness three talented Pakistani cricketers go down for such a shameful crime, the English didn't lose much sleep over it, safe in the knowledge that such a problem has and never will exist in our game, with claims of Strauss' men as criminals in the same series being shot down as false and insignificant.
But now, those of us who have dismissed corruption as purely a sub-continental issue, now have to reconsider the integrity of the English game, and this, the ECB will lose sleep over. Granted, as far as we know, Westfield is the only English player to be involved in corruption, but even so, his lack of judgment and failure to report the approach gives spot-fixers hope of finding more vulnerable targets in England.
Questions of why have been asked repeatedly by the world of cricket ever since the Pakistani incident, but it really is astonishing that cricketers seem to be so easily influenced by foreign bodies. It goes without saying that financial gain is the prime reason for corrupt activity in the game, both for the fixer and the player, but are players' wages really so bad that illegal activity is the only way for them to gain satisfaction? Footballers would probably turn their noses up at what a domestic cricketer earns, but cricketers play their sport for a reason, a love of the game. Well that is what we thought.
Spot-fixers strike me as pretty cowardly. Their prime targets are young, vulnerable individuals who, at the end of the day, may have no choice in whether they accept the deal or not. Take Mohammed Amir for example, at 18 years of age he was one of the most talented Pakistani bowlers ever seen, only to have his career cut short by someone with frankly no interest in cricket whatsoever. Westfield's case is similar, for he was 21 back in 2009 when the match in question took place. It goes to show how vulnerable young players are, and the importance of the ability to speak up before a potentially career-ending mistake is made.
The ECB have said they are not complacent about fixing, but it must come as a shock to see English cricket in the headlines for such a shameful reason. Westfield's case must be a warning to all forms of English cricket, as it has been made clear that low profile names are just as vulnerable, if not more so, to corruption abroad. It is important that the ECB keeps an especially close eye on domestic cricket, for in the sub-continent, these matches seem to be followed eagerly for all the wrong reasons.
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