Bangalore, May 17: Ed Hawkins, author of Bookie, Gambler, Fixer Spy: A journey into the heart of cricket's underworld, said in an interview to Firstpost that he was not surprised with the latest spot-fixing in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) for the tournament suffers from a poor reputation of corruption ever since it was launched in 2008. He said he was rather surprised by the fact that it took a long time to unravel something concrete.

Hawkins said the Twenty-20 format of cricket is easier to fix for the players don't take it as seriously as a test or one-day match. According to the author, even in international T20 matches, the players have little reservation in indulging in such activities and when it comes to the IPL where they parachute from across the board, there exists no loyalty to the franchise or the team-mates, who are most often people from rival camps.

Hawkins said the lack of a loyalty to a team makes the IPL a "perfect storm for fixing". He said its immense popularity also makes the Indian bookmakers get flooded with bets.

On the functioning of the bookies, Hawkins said there are just four main markets to net on in the Indian market, namely, match results, innings runs, lunch favourites (when one bets on the team which is better-placed to win the match at the break) and the bracket fixing. Brackets fixing means the number of runs to be scored usually in the first six overs.

The author said it is an upill task to prevent such fixing because of the subtlty. He sad id a bowler might think it wouldn't affect the match result if he had bowled just one over badly and feel confident of getting away with it.

Hawkins said the Delhi Police did an extraordinary job by starting a probe and gather information to arrest the three players of the Rajasthan Royals.

[See full interview]

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