England skipper Andrew Strauss says extreme measures, such as using lie detector tests, should be considered to
rid cricket of corruption.
Strauss said
corruption, highlighted by allegations of spot-fixing levelled at several members
of Pakistan’s cricket team, needed to be eradicated at all costs, even
if it meant subjecting players to lie detector tests.
“We don’t
want the whiff of anything suspicious going on in the game,” Strauss
said.
“We’ve seen how disruptive it is and how detrimental to the game of cricket it is.
“So
the devil of all these things is in the detail and if we have to take
extreme measures in order to be 100 per cent confident the game’s being
played in the right spirit, then I would certainly be happy to do that.
“I’ll have to think about the arguments one side and another first.
“But
the principle of having 22 guys on the pitch that the supporters are
100 per cent certain are playing the game for the right reasons, that’s a
good thing.”
Former Australian captain Steve Waugh is heading up a working party to discuss ways of
eradicating corruption and although he admitted it would be near impossible
to force players to undergo lie detector tests, he said such measures
needed to be seriously discussed.
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, why wouldn’t you want to have a lie detector test to say you’ve done nothing wrong?” Waugh said.
“Of course you can’t make that compulsory.
“But
I’m saying if players want to take a lie detector test to say they’ve
done nothing wrong, then I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
