It is in the interest of all cricket administrators to show that match-fixing never occurred. The Delhi Police waylaid the best plans of people wanting to look the other way; the tapes, not unlike Nixon’s Watergate tapes, carried both smoke and considerable fire. Hansie Cronje’s admission of guilt, while welcome, was inevitable. If pangs of guilt were enough, then Saeed Anwar would have stopped the rot ages ago: Mr. Anwar is reported to have felt guilty after receiving money, revealed this fact to his friends and Justice Quayyum, and is believed to have been off the gravy train since. There are several other scandals lurking in the shadows – will there be, can there be, enough evidence for the fans to assess whether match fixing actually took place?

It is necessary to make transparent the meaning of match fixing. Betting on cricket, and associated fixing, takes place on several match events - how many wides will there be in a match, will Cronje reach 50 runs, will South Africa score be above 100 in the first 15 overs. And so on. For most betting junkies, there are several fix possibilities. The literal meaning of a match fix is where the result of the match is pre-determined i.e. India will win, South Africa will lose, etc. A match fix requires a fair amount of co-operation between the members of the team. For difficulties in match fixing, just ask Cronje about Lance Klusener, a cricketer who has upset many a forecaster, bookies and otherwise. Match fixing is almost impossible to prove.

Thus, it is hard to believe that there will be enough evidence for a court of law. We have considerable evidence of Justices playing footlose with the facts and cricket administrators indulging in cover-up operations. No reason to think that Justice - or justice - will prevail.

Every fan knows of examples where match-fixing was likely to have occurred - the precipitous drop in India's fortunes against Zimbabwe in the World Cup, Pakistan losing to Bangladesh in the same tournament, South Africa losing to India in 2000. These matches were upsets, and it is clear that not every upset is a match fix - otherwise, there can be no such thing as glorious uncertainties. (It is more a case of bookie certainties these days). But is there a method which will identify teams which have been involved in an abnormally large amount of upset matches?

Upset matches include possibilities of where event fixing (such as Boje being fixed to score less than 20, Crooke's opening the bowling for South Africa etc.) takes place without explicit match fixing. Players can only be provoked, with certainty, to play below potential. If event fixing takes place, then the likelihood of an upset increases. In the aggregate, there will be a greater percentage of upsets, than average, when event fixing takes place. If one can identify teams involved in upset matches, one can obtain circumstantial evidence of player involvement in event/match fixing.

The key parameter needed for identifying upsets is the objective pre-match probability (PMP) of a team winning a match. When the actual result is at odds with the forecast, an upset occurs. CricketX (via its website www.cricketx.com) has developed a comprehensive model of cricket. This model, covering both Test and one-day cricket, constructs pre-match probabilities on the basis of batting strength, bowling strength, pitch fixing, home ground advantage, ability to play under stress etc. That the model yields solid results is indicated by its success in predicting match results before they are played (about 65 to 70 percent) and in dynamically (over by over) predicting the result of a match. (For the second innings of a one-day match, the success ratio - percent of matches predicted correctly - is close to 80 percent. Check out these assertions during the Asia Cup at cricketx.com).

The cricketX model computes the PMP and therefore can establish if an upset occurred. Upsets happen about 35 percent of the time. What if a team is involved in 50 percent upsets in a given year when its peers are involved in upsets which account for only 35 percent of matches played? This difference, 15 percent, is cricketX's match-fixing indicator. Note that the method allows for a "normal" quota of upsets to occur; only excessive amounts of upsets are suggestive of dal mein kala. In 1999, India played 34 matches, and only 50 percent (17 matches) yielded the correct i.e. predicted result. Fifty percent of matches were upsets. During the same year, matches not involving India yielded an upset in 25 percent of the matches. The cricketX match fixing indicator for India for 2000 is therefore 50 minus 25 or 25 match fixing points (MFP).

The cricketX model provides compelling evidence that match fixing likely took place in the nineties. What is most informative is the pattern of match fixing revealed over the years. The story is one of a travelling bookie, searching for collaborators. It begins in the early nineties, possibly during or just after the 1992 World Cup. Betting is illegal in India, there is a considerable amount of underground money, for example in films, where it is mostly noire. Treatises will soon be written as to why the match fixing business flourished in India. The fact remains that it is suspected that India was the hub, and cricketX evidence suggests the same.

Back to the honest bookie. She (why not?) finds willing comrades in India and Pakistan, societies where betting is illegal, government intervention in all forms of economic activity is huge, and corruption is a necessary way of life. Profits are made and the net widens. Down Under players are seduced and the party goes on.

But then differences occur. Journalists get suspicious. Shane Warne and Mark Waugh confess to communicating weather information to the bookies. Some Pakistani players feel they have done wrong (strangely, no reports of any Indian player thinking he has done wrong). By 1999 it is almost all quiet on the eastern front. The Australians, Indian and Pakistanis have gone underground - mums the word, come to us later, cellphones are for talking with the family, the hounds are on the scent, etc. So what is an honest bookie to do - involve South Africans, who are the only "winning" country left, and whose lily-white status has, so far, not been tainted by blackfix money.

The travelling bookie story is too cute - too pat, too unbelievable. However, the string of coincidences that happened to make the above story untrue are even more unbelievable. You take your pick. Details for each country follow.  

The Past Australia:

In 1994, two leading Australian players, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, provided "weather" information to the bookies. Match fixing points for the year - a respectable 14 percent. In 1995, despite playing 11 ODI's against Test playing nations, no evidence of match fixing. Activity picks up in 1996 and the MFP peaks in 1997 at 25. Co-incidentally, details of the 1994 weather report are available, courtesy an Australian newspaper, around peak activity. In 1998, the Australian MFP plummets to 14 percent in 1998 and to zero (and 3) in 1999 and 2000. The Australian Cricket Board slapped the wrists, and apparently the punishment was harsh enough to cool betting ardours.  

India:

In 1997, the Indian cricket board set up a one justice committee to study match fixing. Justice Chandrachud exonerated all the players, found not the slightest bit of evidence, and especially did not find such evidence because he said it was impossible to fix matches. Reminds one of the story of a man who lost his car keys and then walked 100 yards to the nearest lamppost to look for his keys there!

While the cover-up inquiry was going on in 1997, the model indicates zero match fixing points for India. After the BCCI-Chandrachud beatification report , bookies breathed profitable sighs of relief and India accumulated a high 20 MFP's in 1998, and even more (25 MFPs) in 1999! With the heat on in 2000, lie low is the motto and there are zero MFPs.  

Pakistan:

Its team is the undisputed king of alleged match-fixing. Players have been dropped, captains reinstated, a lot of sound and fury, but so far, a damp squib. However, the draconian penalties rumored to be contained in Justice Quayyum report seems to have been the perfect deterrent. The Pakistani team accumulated a lot of match fixing points - 26 in 1995 and 28 in 1997. In 1998, Mr. Quayyum stopped the rot (unlike Mr. Chandrachud of India). Since 1998, Pakistan has played 66 matches against Test playing nations - no match fixing points for three lean years. Note that the notorious Bangladesh-Pakistan World Cup match is excluded from the analysis of one-days played between Test nations. Perhaps that match provided the fix that the junkies needed.  

South Africa:

For five lean years, the South African team was involved in no "wrong decision" matches. During the two gold years of match fixing - 1997 and 1998 - South Africa played 42 ODI's and was involved in only 12 upsets. In contrast, its peers played 161 matches out of which about half (78 matches) resulted in upsets. But the slack season was awaiting the big event. In Cronje's year 2000, the rest of the world was too shy of match fixing. Matches not involving the Springboks yield an upset in only 22 percent of the matches; the cricketX model has never worked so well (and this is a model estimated using data prior to 1990!). Matches with Cronje yield an upset in 42 percent of the matches to yield 20 match fixing points in 2000. This figure matches Australia in 1997, India in 1997 and 1998, and Pakistan in 1995 and 1997.

The future

The Asia Cup starts at the end of May. Enjoy this affaire, for it will be the first clean tournament in quite some time. It will be notable for the telling absence of mobile phones from the dressing room. Adding fuel to the enjoyment is cricketX's forecast that this series is too close to call. Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka are evenly matched and Bangladesh has a half-decent chance of winning one match. The honest bookie has nowhere to turn. But give him a few months. He will be back, or I am a Bharat Natyam dancer.