The cons of miking up players

As a research associate of an academic institution that covers ethics and corruption in a variety of fields, my area is the field of sports betting. In that role, I have become a keen follower of sports betting trends, and am often asked to speak to administrators about ways to mitigate the risk of corruption. I am also asked to educate young athletes about the potential dangers and grooming behaviours that can lead unwittingly to exploitation, real or perceived. I emphasis perceived because when it comes to issues of integrity, perception alone is sufficient to severely undermine confidence.

It was with some fascination, then, that I watched the recent television coverage of the Australia v South Africa T20 series and felt a growing sense of discomfort with the potential for the sort of interactive commentary we saw on offer to be exploited in a myriad of ways. I stress here that there is not even the slightest suggestion that anything untoward happened in these games - the point I wish to draw your attention to is the way in which this sort of interactivity, with live crosses to the players in the middle providing us with a fascinating insight into ball-by-ball strategies, team plans for individual batsmen, field sets, targets and so on can become a fertile breeding ground for spot-fixing. Or even the accusation or thought that such a game might have been fixed, which can be just as damaging to the integrity of the sport/players as actual corrupt behaviour.

For those of you who did not watch the telecast or did not notice the subtleties that my hypersensitive antennae are geared to pick up, here are some examples. The commentators cross live to Glenn Maxwell, who has just hit a six and a four and brought the asking rate down to 6.2 runs per over. They ask him what his plans are and he tells us that he is now going to work the ball around for singles and get close to the target with some risk-free batting. For anyone betting on that market, there are half a dozen bets that can be made based on that sort of insight from the batsman out in the middle. A few balls later, Maxwell makes a mockery of his own words by attempting to launch one beyond the longest boundary on the field and gets caught in the deep. Anyone who bet on him pushing singles for a few overs would have done their dough instantly.

Ben Dunk was frequently asked about what sort of lengths the bowlers would be bowling, whether the pitch was starting to slow up, how much dew was on the field, and what sort of fields were going to be set for specific batsmen. Again, it was a fascinating insight into what's happening out there in the middle, but for a sport that bans mobile phones in dressing rooms and educates players about the dangers of providing information about pitch conditions, team make-up and team plans to outsiders, it is scarcely believable that once the game begins, we are getting this information from the middle. Have the authorities heard of "in-the-run" betting (live, ball-by-ball betting)?

In the previous game, one of the South African fielders was asked about specific plans for a certain batsman. Surely it defies belief that teams will openly talk about how they are planning to dismiss a certain player?

And is that sort of insight open to a double bluff or deliberate misinformation? Is that what Maxwell was trying to achieve, hoping that the South Africa dressing room would then pass on the message to the captain to bring the field in because they reckon he's going to just work singles?

Taken to its extremes, how can this be good for the integrity of the game? It's one thing having experienced commentators analysing strategy to this extent but for the players themselves to be commentating live on their own strategies is surely an invitation to mischief?

If you wanted to come up with conspiracy theories, you only need to look as far as JP Duminy's captaincy in the third T20 in Sydney. With the game hanging on a knife edge, he chose to give the expensive Wayne Parnell the 19th over, with Kyle Abbott still in the wings. Why would you not bowl your best bowler, hope he can bowl a tight one, get a wicket perhaps, and then if the game is still live, you may have no choice but to bowl Parnell? Going on Parnell's form on the day, the game might have been finished by the end of the 19th over and Abbott, Duminy's best bowler, would have ended up with an unused over up his sleeve. As it turned out, Abbott almost pulled off a miracle, but it was too little too late. Imagine if the captain (or senior players) were miked up and had previewed that bowling choice? The implications for betting and even batting-order changes (when to send a left-hander in, for example) are far-reaching.

That the local cricket board, the ICC or the host broadcaster haven't considered the implications of this commentary is hard to believe, so perhaps they've discussed it and decided that the risks are negligible. Yet if the authorities themselves can't see the danger when the lines get blurred, it becomes very difficult for young players to understand why they are asked to steer clear of any involvement, even innocently, with anyone seeking similar information off the field.

That corruption in cricket exists is undeniable. With the proliferation of meaningless matches designed purely to milk the cash cow dry (like the current India v Sri Lanka and Australia v South Africa series), the potential for integrity to be compromised looms even larger. When a shamelessly commercial media infiltrate the sanctity of the playing arena, it is only a matter of time before there is a fix (or a false accusation). You can bet on that.