Former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh has taken a lie-detector
test as part of his bid to root corruption out of the game.
Waugh
believes making players submit to examination by lie-detectors, or
polygraphs as they are also known, could help drive cheats from the
game.
As a member of the world cricket committee of Marylebone
Cricket Club (MCC), which owns Lord’s, Waugh volunteered to undergo a
test to confirm he had never been involved in corruption in cricket.
MCC
arranged for him to be tested by Steven van Aperen who, it said in a
statement, was one of “Australia’s leading polygraph examiners”.
“Steve Waugh passed this test convincingly,” MCC added.
Waugh,
speaking to reporters at Lord’s on Tuesday, said: “As a former captain I
know you never ask a player to do something you are not willing to do
yourself.
“So on April 7 I went to Melbourne and went through the process of a polygraph test.
“At
the end of the process, which took about two hours, I was convinced
that anybody with something to hide would be found out by this process.”
Australian
great Waugh was spurred into action following last year’s revelations
by Britain’s now defunct News of the World tabloid that former Pakistan
captain Salman Butt, and bowlers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif, were
all involved in the deliberate bowling of no-balls during a Test against
England at Lord’s as part of a betting scam.
The Pakistan trio
were suspended for a minimum of five years each by the International
Cricket Council (ICC), the sport’s global governing body, and are now
awaiting a criminal trial in England due to start in October.
Polygraph
tests cannot be used as evidence in an English criminal court and MCC’s
statement added: “The (world cricket) committee accepts that the use of
polygraph tests is a sensitive subject but their potential use should
now be widely debated in the game.”
Waugh, who said the committee
was merely proposing voluntary tests, added: “There are a lot of
rumours about match-fixing and spot-fixing and I don’t like that.
“So this is about giving the public some confidence that the game is being played in the right way.
“And
for players who have been wrongly accused, I can give them confidence
that it is a fair and reasonable process and that you’ll get the correct
answer.”
Meanwhile, MCC also urged the ICC’s under-fire
anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU) to undertake ‘sting’ operations
similar to the one carried out by the News of the World last year.
ACSU
chief Ronnie Flanagan, a former senior British policeman, has said his
organisation lacks the resources and mandate needed for such work.
“Players must feel there is a genuine risk of being caught,” the MCC committee said.
“And
so the ICC ACSU should aim to increase their investigative powers by
whatever means, including the use of ‘sting’ operations.”
