ICC an absolute joke, says Kim Hughes

SYDNEY, JUNE 16. Former Australian captain Kim Hughes called cricket's governing body today ``an absolute joke'' that had ``killed the game''.

He said the International Cricket Council (ICC) must take some responsibility for the betting scandal that has tarnished cricket. Hughes made the comments after disgraced former South African captain Hansie Cronje admitted to a government match- fixing inquiry he had accepted payments from bookmakers over a five-year period.

``The cricket board that is responsible for running cricket is an absolute joke,'' Hughes told ABC Radio. ``The ICC has known of this for four or five years and has done absolutely nothing about it, and has tried to sweep it under the carpet hopeful that it might just go away. Well, it hasn't gone away, and now the whole game has been thrown into an absolute abyss. Hopefully from this will come the resolve of administrators to, through the courts or whatever, put the guilty parties away and confiscate their monies, and if it means going back five or six years to really clean it up, so be it.''

Hughes said he wasn't trying to absolve Cronje, ``but the ICC is responsible for the game and it must wear some of the responsibility because it has stuffed around and killed the game.''

A long-time critic of the ICC, Hughes said all-time great players such as Clive Lloyd, Richie Benaud and Mike Brearley should be appointed to a panel of eminent players to run the game.

``I believe it's time we tried to get fellows like Clive Lloyd, Mike Brearley or David Gower or Ian Chappell or Greg Chappell or Richie Benaud or Don Bradman, some of the all-time great players, and put them on a panel as big boards do and pay these successful men who are in their 60s plus for their wisdom.''

Hughes said he could not understand how fellow players could be approached to throw a match. ``Having been a former captain, I just can't get my mind around how you could even ask a player,'' he said. ``If I went to any of the Australian players and said, whether I said it jokingly or not, `look we might be able to make 100 grand here if we let them beat us, what do you think?', the blokes would smack me one.''

Hughes, West Australian Cricket Association chairman of selectors, played 70 Tests, scoring 4,415 runs with a 37.41 average. He made nine centuries.

- AFP

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Adams & Chanderpaul put up a blockade
Next     : Wasim Akram takes centrestage