Governance and Integrity

The ICC has no authority above its members. The same national boards it governs elect its directors, approve its budget and vote on rule changes, so it regulates a game its own stakeholders control.

Source: ICC · recall

The Board pairs the twelve Full Member representatives with a small number of Associate Members elected to speak for the rest, plus an independent chair, so the Full Members hold the working majority.

Source: ICC · recall

The people who set the rules, hold the votes and control the finances are the same people the rules are meant to constrain, so a board rarely faces a hard sanction from a council it part-owns.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Indian broadcast and sponsorship money underwrites the global game, so the Board of Control for Cricket in India takes the largest revenue share and its position carries decisive weight in ICC votes.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The chair is elected by the directors on the ICC Board from among candidates the members put forward. There is no outside appointment and no fan or player vote in the process.

Source: ICC · recall

Playing conditions and Code changes pass through ICC committees made up of member representatives. If the powerful boards are against a proposal, it seldom reaches the point of a vote.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The MCC has been the guardian of the Laws since 1788 and still revises them with a worldwide advisory group. The ICC layers its own playing conditions on top for international matches.

Source: Wisden · recall

The defence is that boards running their own competitions understand the game's needs better than an outside regulator would, and that self-government has held a fragmented sport together for over a century.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The ICC has suspended members over government interference or financial failure, freezing their funding and their place in events. Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka have both been suspended in recent years.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The members own the ICC, elect its leadership, set its rules and receive its money. It has real powers over events and eligibility, but it answers to the boards rather than to any outside authority.

Source: ICC · recall

The FTP sets out which Full Members will tour each other, and roughly when, across a cycle of several years. The current programme runs from 2023 to 2027.

Source: ICC · recall

The FTP records what boards intend to do, but no board can be forced to honour it. Series get postponed, shortened or cancelled when money, politics or scheduling get in the way.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

World Cups and other ICC events sit outside the FTP, which deals only with bilateral cricket between two members. Domestic franchise leagues are not part of it either.

Source: ICC · recall

The lucrative fixtures are India, England and Australia playing one another. With no obligation to tour lower-earning nations, those series can quietly drop off the calendar, cutting the smaller boards' income.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

There is no standing sanction for a missed tour. The host loses the gate and broadcast income it had planned for, and the two boards settle any compensation privately.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

A published multi-year outline lets a board sell broadcast rights, book grounds and arrange sponsorship in advance. Without it, planning international cricket more than a season ahead would be near impossible.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Before the WTC, a bilateral Test series meant little beyond the trophy at stake. Attaching league points gave otherwise isolated series a place in a two-year race for a final.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Leagues in India, Australia, England and elsewhere claim windows in the calendar and pay players enough to skip a national tour, so boards must fit the FTP around them or risk fielding weakened sides.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Smaller boards want compensation guaranteed in writing so a cancelled tour carries a real cost. The big boards resist locking themselves into fixtures they may later want to drop.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The FTP works only as long as members choose to honour it. It gives the game a planning framework, but its fixtures stand or fall on each board's willingness to turn up.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Cronje first denied the recordings, then admitted taking money from bookmakers to influence matches and to encourage teammates to underperform. The revelations reached far beyond one player.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

South Africa's board imposed a life ban. Cronje died in a plane crash in 2002. Inquiries in the same period brought life bans for players from other countries too.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The Anti-Corruption Unit, first led by the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Condon, was founded in 2000 to investigate approaches, educate players and monitor betting patterns.

Source: ICC · recall

A newspaper sting filmed an agent taking cash and predicting the exact deliveries on which Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif would overstep, at the instruction of captain Salman Butt.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

An ICC tribunal banned Salman Butt for ten years, Mohammad Asif for seven and Mohammad Amir for five. A London court then jailed all three in 2011; Amir returned to international cricket in 2016.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

A spot-fixer arranges a small, bettable event, such as a no-ball in a set over, that pays out for gamblers in the know without necessarily changing which side wins.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

One player can deliver a no-ball without anyone else's help, and a single odd delivery in a long match is easy to miss, so the fixer's risk of exposure is far lower than rigging a whole game.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Delhi police stumbled on Cronje through an unrelated wiretap, and a tabloid sting caught the 2010 fixers. In both cases outside bodies, not the ICC's unit, made the breakthrough.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Under the Anti-Corruption Code, failing to report an approach is itself an offence. Players attend education sessions and personal devices are kept out of dressing rooms during play.

Source: ICC · applied

Cases have kept surfacing since, in domestic leagues and lower-profile internationals, so the ICC treats anti-corruption as permanent monitoring and education rather than a problem it has fixed.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The Code applies to players, coaches and officials once they are part of international cricket or a sanctioned event. It also reaches franchise-league participants through each league's own version of the Code.

Source: ICC · recall

The duty to report is central to the Code. A player who receives an approach and fails to tell the Anti-Corruption Unit promptly can be charged and banned, even if they turned the fixer down.

Source: ICC · applied

Anti-corruption rules bar personal phones from the dressing room during play, limiting the chance for a player to receive live instructions from someone betting on the match.

Source: ICC · recall

Betting on cricket at all, passing inside information to anyone who might bet, and accepting gifts from bookmakers are all separate Code offences, whether or not a match is affected.

Source: ICC · applied

Players sit through anti-corruption briefings before major tournaments and at intervals through their careers, so the reporting rules and the warning signs of an approach stay familiar.

Source: ICC · recall

Under the Code players must hand over devices and financial records on request. The unit has no police powers, though, so serious cases are passed to national law-enforcement agencies.

Source: ICC · applied

Fixers have moved towards minor franchise and domestic tournaments with weak oversight, small crowds and players who are paid little, where an approach is more likely to succeed and less likely to be seen.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The obligation is to inform the unit directly and promptly. Handling a suspicion inside the dressing room, or sitting on it, can itself breach the Code.

Source: ICC · recall

Approaches usually come to players quietly, through friends, family or agents, long before any investigator would notice. Making non-reporting an offence turns every insider into a potential source.

Source: ICC · applied

By binding players, coaches and officials alike, and by punishing silence, the Code puts the first line of defence against corruption on the people inside the game rather than on outside enforcement.

Source: ICC · recall

Cameron Bancroft was filmed rubbing a strip of sandpaper on one side of the ball to rough it up, then hiding it in his trousers when he realised he had been seen.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

The ICC gave Steve Smith a one-match ban and fined Bancroft. Cricket Australia then banned Smith and David Warner for a year and Bancroft for nine months, with Warner barred from captaincy for life.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The Code of Conduct sets out on- and off-field offences, from dissent and abuse to ball tampering and bringing the game into disrepute, and the penalties attached to each.

Source: ICC · recall

Level 1 covers the mildest breaches, such as audible obscenities, and Level 4 the gravest, such as threatening an umpire. The level fixes the range of fines, demerit points and bans available.

Source: ICC · recall

Demerit points attach to the player and stay on file for two years. They accumulate across separate incidents, so a run of small offences can add up to a ban.

Source: ICC · recall

Four demerit points within a two-year window equal two suspension points, which rules a player out of one Test or two white-ball internationals. More points mean longer bans.

Source: ICC · applied

Tampering was moved up the Code's scale so it now carries more demerit points and a longer maximum ban, a direct reaction to the sense that the original punishment had been too light.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Each international fixture has an ICC match referee from the Elite Panel who lays charges, runs the hearing and decides the penalty. Umpires report incidents but do not judge them.

Source: ICC · recall

A percentage-of-match-fee fine barely troubles a well-paid international, and it left no lasting mark. Points that build towards an automatic ban raise the cost of a second or third offence.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

A published tariff of offences, applied by a neutral referee and tracked over two years, is designed to give the same incident the same outcome wherever and whoever it involves.

Source: ICC · recall