Cricket may never be clean, claims Marcus Trescothick

Andrew Hodgson10 April 2012

Marcus Trescothick fears cricket's authorities may never be able to rid the game of corruption.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, head of the ICC's Anti Corruption and Security Unit, was in London last week vowing to clean up the game for good.

ACSU officials are in close contact with the Metropolitan Police as they continue their investigation into Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif's conduct during the Fourth Test against England at Lord's.

Despite the latest scandal, Flanagan and Lorgat defended ACSU's record, pointing to the education programme given to every player when they first enter the international arena.

But Trescothick remains unconvinced the world's governing body has the tools to clean up the game.

He said: "You do get taught about corruption when you first come into international cricket and then the management will come and speak to you about the implications if you get caught. The implications are spelled out to you. The deterrent is there, the video and the ACSU stuff definitely deters you but clearly not enough in some cases.

"With everything that happened with Hansie Cronje, I think we were all hoping it had gone away. Now it seems week after week things are coming back to get us.

"I just don't know if there is a solution at this stage. It's hard to judge. You just have to keep doing the right things and the authorities have to get a grip on what's going on. But I find it pretty hard to see how they will change things. It doesn't look good at the moment. It's a pretty sad time for cricket."

While the game is currently engulfed in gloom, Trescothick at least believes the current scandal may have short-term benefits for England. It is a fortnight since Ricky Ponting suggested Australia could win the Ashes 5-0 but the allegations surounding the Pakistani trio have wiped talk of this winter's tour off the media agenda.

Trescothick said: "What's going on might give England a bit of respite. Australia have already started with the 5-0 calls and stuff.

"They are always early to start it. It's generally in the middle of our summer in a middle of our big series that they pipe up and talk a load of whatever. They try and manipulate what's going on but it might be badly timed this time because of what's going on."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in