In 2000 the South Africa captain Hansie Cronje was taped by Delhi police in conversation with a bookmaker. The investigation which followed revealed that Cronje had accepted money to throw matches, for which he was later banned. He later died in a plane crash.

The Cronje scandal opened a can of worms in several countries and former captains of India and Pakistan were banned, as well as two further South Africans. Bob Woolmer was coach of South Africa at the time.

The International Cricket Council has an ongoing anti-corruption unit and dressing-rooms are tightly controlled during games. Players are not permitted to have mobile phones at matches and internet access is forbidden.

The hunger for information that could affect the odds led to an earlier scandal.

Australian stars Shane Warne and Mark Waugh were fined for taking money from a bookmaker in return for information about the pitch and weather.

The change in the nature of betting makes cricket especially vulnerable. It is a game with an enormous number of 'events' . . . each game lasts 600 balls and there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. A majority of soccer matches end 0-0, 1-0, 1-1 or 2-1. There is no such probability in cricket.

The recent phenomenon of 'spread betting' allows gamblers to bet on minor events in a match. It is easy for a corrupt player to influence these small matters which cost his team little. A player can put all his efforts into winning the game while fiddling on the side . . . and a whole team does not need to be corrupted.

For example, were the Ireland v Pakistan match last week to have been affected in such a way, it would not necessarily have concerned the result. The Pakistan team was on their way out if they lost and they bowled with such determination towards the end that it seems inconceivable they might have been 'got at'. But that is not to say a bookmaker may have ensured a batsman was out for less than 20 or a bowler deliver a wide in his first over.

Few major sports have escaped the curse of bookmaker-driven corruption.

In 1999 a security officer at Charlton Athletic was found to have sabotaged floodlights. Betting rules stated that the result of an abandoned game would stand, thus allowing the Malaysia-betting syndicate to control the result. The gang was also responsible for floodlight failures at West Ham and Crystal Palace.

Last year the Italian champions Juventus were stripped of their title for rigging games. Three other clubs were implicated and suffered penalties, including relegation. And horse racing, with its symbiotic relationship with bookmaking, has long been dogged by allegations of race-fixing.