Lord Condon, former chief of the International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, has said the increasing popularity of Twenty20 is a major factor in the re-emergence of corruption in cricket.
In a recent interview to a sport magazine, Lord Condon said some of the past notorious fixers started to re-emerge in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia and the UK. He said Twenty20 legitimized the return of the bad guys to cricket. Fixers were even seen in promoters' boxes and at matches, he added.
He mentioned that Twenty20 had taken away the discipline and rigor that the ASCU had been enforcing for the past decade. "I think the temptation was to do a little fix here and a little fix there and still win the match - and they were not seeing it as criminal," he told the Cricketer magazine.
Expressing sorrow over the changing trends in cricket, he said at least six national teams had been subject to attention from the authorities in the last 10 years. Pakistan had been the most challenging in the recent years, he added.
