By Charles Randall
22 June 2012
The Wanstead & Snaresbrook CC all-rounder Mervyn Westfield has been banned from all cricket activity for three years by the ECB. After that he can return to play and coach at club level, but he must stay away from all involvement in first class and representative cricket for another two years.
The disciplinary panel of Gerard Elias QC, David Gabbitass and Jamie Dalrymple - convened in London by Sport Resolutions UK - announced that the former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria was banned for life for two charges made against him and, from earlier indications by the Pakistan cricket authorities, the sanction would apply in his own country as well. Kaneria reacted by describing the verdict as "very unfair" and said he would appeal.
Westfield, according to the panel, would have been banned for nine years without his willingness to testify against his former Essex team-mate Kaneria for corruption that allegedly involved an Indian businessman called Anu Bhatt. Westfield had pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey in January to accepting a corrupt payment of £6,000 contrary to section 1(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, earning him a term of four months' imprisonment and confiscation of the £6,000. The charge referred to bowling to concede runs in an Essex one-dayer at Durham in 2009. He was an enthusiastic youth coach at Wanstead, and whether he will return to club cricket in any capacity after this suspension is apparently open to doubt.
Perhaps of wider interest is the ECB panel's view of the potentially "catastrophic" damage to cricket caused by corrupt activity. "Self evidently, corruption, specifically spot fixing, in cricket or any other sport for that matter, is a cancer that eats at the health and very existence of the game," they said in their statement. "For the general public, supporting the game and their team within it, there is no merit or motivation to expend time, money or effort to watch a match whose integrity may be in doubt. The consequences of the public’s disengagement from cricket would be catastrophic.
"Furthermore, the game of cricket simply cannot afford to have its reputation tarnished in the eyes of commercial partners. These partners could not and would not link their brand to a sport whose integrity had been so undermined. For players who have devoted their entire careers to the pursuit of hard fought and properly competitive sport, to have those genuine achievements called into question by the corrupt actions of a tiny minority, may tend to devalue their worth.
"Accordingly, we have no doubt that this is a cancer which must be rooted out of the game of cricket. As a result of this in relation to domestic cricket, the ECB and the Professional Cricketers' Association have introduced programmes of training and education such that in 2012 there are in place for all county cricketers appropriate safeguards in the area of match fixing and corruption. These were not in place in 2009."
The ECB panel decided that Westfield's evidence against Kaneria was credible. He had described his link with Kaneria and Bhatt, a man reckoned by the ICC to be heavily involved in betting, and this was backed by police evidence gleaned from texts and mobile phone calls. Kaneria's habit of "testing the water" with other Essex players -- passed off as jocular at the time -- counted against him.
In sentencing the panel remarked that Kaneria had corrupted "a young and vulnerable player" and attempted to involve others in the net of corruption. "As a senior international player of repute he plainly betrayed the trust reposed in him in his dealings with fellow team mates and we regard his persistent efforts to recruit spot fixers as being a seriously aggravating factor in his case. Significant sums of money doubtless flow from corrupt activities such as those which we have examined this week, and we have no doubt that those involved in making such corrupt financial gains spare no thought either for those they corrupt or for the integrity of the game."
The panel added: "Kaneria has made no admission, has shown no remorse and sought to cast blame on other plainly innocent persons. In all these circumstances, we regard Danish Kaneria as a grave danger to the game of cricket and we must take every appropriate step to protect our game from his corrupt activities."