"In the late 1990s, Test and World Cup matches were being routinely fixed," Paul Condon, the founding head of the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit, said in an interview with London Evening Standard.
"There were a number of teams involved in fixing, and certainly more than the Indian sub-continent teams were involved.
"Every international team, at some stage, had someone doing some funny stuff."
This month a British court jailed three Pakistan cricketers for deliberately bowling no-balls in a Test against England at Lord's last year in order to affect an illegal betting coup.
Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt was sentenced to 30 months in prison while bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were jailed for a year and six months respectively.
But Condon, a former head of London's Metropolitan Police Force who helped set up the ICC's anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU) in 2000 and chaired it for a decade, said: "A whole generation of cricketers playing in the late 1990s must have known what was going on and did nothing."
And Condon added the root of the problem lay not in Asia but in English county cricket, where favours were traded between teams across the domestic 40-over Sunday league and first-class Championship competitions.
"If you're Team A and have a higher position in the Sunday league and I'm captain of Team B and my team have no chance in the Sunday league, I might do a deal to ensure you got maximum points in your Sunday league match.
"You would reciprocate in the County Championship. These friendly fixes quickly became more sinister, probably in the Eighties."
Despite widespread speculation about the probity of several fixtures, cricket chiefs only took action in 2000 when South Africa captain Hansie Cronje was revealed to have accepted bribes from bookmakers.
Condon was brought on board by the ICC, with the initial aim of making sure matches in the 2003 World Cup in southern Africa were 'clean'.
Although confident those games were above board, and that the rigging of matches is no longer a major concern, the 64-year-old believes the tournament marked the emergence of 'spot-fixing' when unscrupulous gamblers realised they could pull off huge betting coups merely on specific incidents.
Yet it was not the ACSU, now headed by another former British police officer in Ronnie Flanagan, who carried out the 'sting' operation that caught the Pakistan trio but now defunct UK tabloid newspaper the News of the World.
"We considered it and a policy decision was taken that, firstly, it would be highly unlikely the police would prosecute," Condon said. "They would say, 'This is entrapment'."
Condon, who helped persuade the British Government to make cheating in sport a criminal offence in the 2005 Gambling Act, had some sympathy for Amir, saying he was "unsophisticated".
"But that's not to say he doesn't deserve a symbolic punishment. To keep cricket clean sentences have to be exemplary."
And he added he knew of cases where Pakistan players risked intimidation by assisting in ACSU inquiries.
"We had this Pakistani cricketer who was genuinely frightened that if he had revealed what he knew, there would be repercussions on his family. He was a very valuable informant. We flew him from Pakistan at the ICC's expense and put him up in safe accommodation in London for about a week while we debriefed him."
Condon urged present-day players to do more in the fight against corruption, saying: "In recent years, there's been very little whistle-blowing from current players."
COMMENTS (6)
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@Ali:
I have one question. Is there any country smaller than Australia?
Whether they were entrapped or not, the fact remains that they WERE accepting bribes. No one knocked them on the head and then stuffed banknotes in their pockets and hands. Hawaas e khamsa mai the ye sab jab notes le rahey the. We ought to grow up, accept that we did wrong, and take this opportunity to clean up our cricket, which has more talent in the reserve players than many other national teams have. Having said that, there should definitely be accountability for the other teams too. Someone should take up this issue with the ICC and sue them for abetting corruption and turning a blind eye towards the misdemeanours of players. After all, many people are coming out of the woodworks and accepting that "funny business" has been going on for a long time. It is up to us cricket-lovers to make sure that it stops now.
COME ON PEOPLE Call yourself the land of pure in one comment and then weigh a measly cometition more valuable than honesty???
Holy Prophet claimed that he would have cut off the hand of his own daughter if she was involved in any thievery...
Call onesself Muslim and the torch bearer of Islam being the people of the LAND OF PURE and then have dishonesty, deception, lying and cheating running through your blood???
Animals have better morals than this. A simple house pet protects the house that shelters him and we are eating ourselves up and then shamelessly blaming the world when Allah decides to life off His 'chadaar of sattari." from our decaying bodies.
Its a 100% entrapement for Amir, Asif and But because the news paper got banned too because they purposely worked as agents to exploit these cricket players. Where ICC just accept that corruption is in Cricket from day first but other team players never got caught on camera. Only 3 know balls doesn't need to give harsh sentence to paki players.
Entrapment is a totally different thing. These kids were trapped so that india can win the world cup. In all honesty was there a better bowler in international cricket than Mohammad Amir?
But if things have happened and ICC was quiet all this time then ICC's higher management should be brought to Justice.