ICC Planning To Monitor Players’ Mobile Phones
Nov 16, 2016 at 3:58 PM
In a bid to end corruption in the game, the Anti-Corruption Unit of the International Cricket Council is planning to take the players’ phone to get the required information if the player is suspected for any malfunction.
“As the world changes and as people use different means of communicating with each other through social media – Whatsapp, Snapchat, all of these things – we have to keep ahead of these things,” Ronnie Flanagan, the head of the ACU, told reporters.
“One extension (of ACU powers) we might seek is that, instead of just asking for a player’s billing records, might we actually, like tennis, seek the ability to take the devices and download them to see what communications had been made upon them.”
The game has been marred with match-fixing on several occasions and it rose its ugly head once again in South Africa last year. Their former batsman Alviro Petersen was recently charged with match-fixing and has been provisionally barred from any involvement with the game.
Speaking on that, Flanagan said that the apex body cannot relax after exposing the culprits and must work harder to remove the menace from every level of the game.
“I think there is no ground for complacency whatsoever,” Flanagan said. “These corruptors have demonstrated ingenuity and demonstrated determination to keep trying to get at players and match officials who are bound by our code of conduct.
“Therefore we must be continually active in thwarting their intentions and we must do that by making the very best use, not just of international resources involved in anti-corruption, but also of the domestic resources involved in anti-corruption,” he added.
“And making sure we coordinate our efforts and share that effort across cricket, wherever it is played and at whatever levels it is played.”