*Cricket match fixer Lou Vincent tells Chris Cairns perjury trial most people have watched a rigged game
LONDON: Chances are you have watched a fixed cricket
match without realising: it's almost impossible to detect, recidivist
fixer Lou Vincent has told Chris Cairns' perjury trial in London.
On a day when he changed his testimony and admitted sleeping with a prostitute a bookmaker had sent to him as a "present", Vincent also gave Southwark Crown Court a fascinating insight into match fixing.
On a day when he changed his testimony and admitted sleeping with a prostitute a bookmaker had sent to him as a "present", Vincent also gave Southwark Crown Court a fascinating insight into match fixing.
If the game was live on TV and there was betting on it, there's a higher
chance the fixers were at play, particularly if it was in India, he
said.
"The average person watching a game - no one could tell. It's very hard to detect."
In a Twenty20 game a batsman can change the course of a match by under performing - not going for his shots, picking out the field, getting run out needlessly.
"It's virtually impossible to fix a match as an individual," Vincent told the court.
Rather than engineer the result, which is difficult, players fix brackets of games - batting slowly for a set number of overs so that those in the know can bet on a certainty.
Vincent helped fix matches in India and English county matches where he played for Lancashire and Sussex.
It was at Sussex he had a change of heart, and went back on a pre-arranged fix with an Indian bookie.
"He requested me to spot fix over a three-over period where he wanted the team to score 14 runs."
Vincent changed his mind and gave a signal that the fix was off, strode to the pitch determined to do well - and was bowled first ball.
He learnt the art at Chandigarh, saying Cairns introduced him to fixing matches by under performing.
At the time he was afflicted by depression so the fix instructions had to be kept simple, he told the jury.
After telling the trial he wanted to come clean about his match fixing - which he alleges Cairns got him into - he altered his story on the prostitute under cross examination by Orlando Pownall, QC.
He said she was a "present" used as match fixing bait by a bookie.
In a Twenty20 game a batsman can change the course of a match by under performing - not going for his shots, picking out the field, getting run out needlessly.
"It's virtually impossible to fix a match as an individual," Vincent told the court.Rather than engineer the result, which is difficult, players fix brackets of games - batting slowly for a set number of overs so that those in the know can bet on a certainty.
Vincent helped fix matches in India and English county matches where he played for Lancashire and Sussex.
It was at Sussex he had a change of heart, and went back on a pre-arranged fix with an Indian bookie.
"He requested me to spot fix over a three-over period where he wanted the team to score 14 runs."
Vincent changed his mind and gave a signal that the fix was off, strode to the pitch determined to do well - and was bowled first ball.
He learnt the art at Chandigarh, saying Cairns introduced him to fixing matches by under performing.
At the time he was afflicted by depression so the fix instructions had to be kept simple, he told the jury.
After telling the trial he wanted to come clean about his match fixing - which he alleges Cairns got him into - he altered his story on the prostitute under cross examination by Orlando Pownall, QC.
He said she was a "present" used as match fixing bait by a bookie.
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