Watson doubts ICC will work

Australian Test cricketers Brad Haddin and Shane Watson at the opening of the new Asics offices at Eastern Creek, Sydney. Picture: Stephen Cooper Source: AdelaideNow

Watson, one of the Australian players approached by an illegal bookie during the Ashes last year, questioned why the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit was so ineffective.

"The ICC anti-corruption unit is not really working," Watson said yesterday.

"That's totally to do with the ICC, so they really need to step in and get to the bottom of it.

"Maybe they don't want to get to the bottom of it because it might run too deep.

"People might turn away from cricket because they don't know (whether) what they are seeing is actually the true facts of cricket."

Watson believes the fact it took a newspaper sting to expose Pakistan cheating shows that the anti-corruption unit isn't doing its job.

The startling claim came as it emerged England might refuse to play against corrupt Pakistan players.

World cricket was holding its breath last night as shamed players Salman Butt, Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif prepared for an interrogation in London by Scotland Yard investigators and senior Pakistan police.

Metropolitan police, armed with players' phone records and the serial numbers of bank notes from the News of the World sting, will spend hours interviewing the tainted players who will also be grilled by Pakistan's most senior police.

ICC corruption police might ban the players before the limited-overs series against England starts in Cardiff on Sunday.

The developments come as matchfixer and player agent Mazhar Majeed  the man who arranged for Aamer and Asif to bowl deliberate no-balls  was arrested on money laundering charges.

Majeed's wife also was arrested, along with another man, on charges which relate to Majeed using a football club as a front to launder the proceeds from his cricket spot-fixing racket.

 England might even boycott the series against Pakistan, which starts with a Twenty20 clash.

Professional Cricketers Association boss Angus Porter insisted the tainted Pakistan players must be banned as England did not want to play against them.

"The England players...would or will find it really difficult to play against the guys directly implicated," Porter said.

"Our strong feeling is a way needs to be found to ensure that they are either suspended or, if that is not possible, some other solution is found so that they do not play."

Pakistan faces Somerset in a one-day match starting tonight (Australian time) but the trio of tainted players will not play  although another shamed player, vice-captain Kamran Akmal, may play.

Butt, Aamer and Asif could face the end of their careers today, although one complicating factor is they will meet Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom who could potentially try to short-circuit any interviews with police.