Making match-fixing a criminal offence in India will be the single-most-effective thing in a country where the police are operating with one hand tied behind their back in the absence of any stringent law. This has been the remarks of a few in cricketing fraternity.
Legal experts have been advocating for years the need to criminalise match-fixing in India, the lack of which has meant that the hands of authorities have been tied when it comes to investigating corruption in the popular sport.
At the moment with no legislation in place, we’ll have good relations with Indian police, but they are operating with one hand tied behind their back, ICC ACU’s coordinator of investigations, Steve Richardson said.
With India set to host two ICC world events in the next three years, Richardson urged the Indian government to frame a legislation on match-fixing like its neighbour Sri Lanka, which became the first major cricket-playing country in South Asia to criminalise the corrupt practice in 2019. More than the players, such a law would deter the corruptors, who he said were right now freely moving around.