Imran Khan has issued a stark warning that the spectre of match fixing will to continue to haunt cricket until the authorities take much firmer action to punish the culprits.

"I certainly think match fixing will continue because what is coming across at the moment is that it is very difficult to find proof to convict players in courts of law," Imran said in an interview on BBC Radio.

"As long the players' perception is there will never be enough evidence to convict you I think they will keep going. As long as people think that crime pays there will be match fixing and people will think crime pays if no-one is ever caught.

"The only time people are scared is when they realise it is not worth doing anything wrong. That's why punishment is very important," he explained.

Imran welcomed the life ban of Hansie Cronje, suggesting that such draconian punishment is the only way to deal with culprits, but he was critical of the softer approach taken to some of Cronje's South African colleagues.

"It has to be life bans and fines. The punishment in South Africa was not good enough. The players admitted to taking money. Now once a player has admitted to taking money, how can he have a six-month suspension before getting back into cricket? Cronje has been banned for life but what about the others. They too admitted to taking money.

"I think if you want to clean up the game players have to realise that it's all over once they are caught, it's the end. That is sufficient deterrent."

Working as a commentator at the time of the 1999 World Cup, Imran revealed that he did not see anything that made him question the legitimacy of any of the results.

"Because I saw nearly every match, I did not think anything was wrong. But here again the Cronje affair hadn't broken in the news and we didn't know about inquiry.

"We didn't have hindsight like we have now, so maybe now I could start suspecting it."

Questioned about the final of that competition, when Australia beat a disappointing Pakistan side with some ease, Imran was quick to credit the Australians with a good performance, rather than suspecting anything under-hand.

"I was convinced it was purely a case of the Pakistan team buckling under pressure," he confirmed. "They just got over-awed by the occasion. I didn't think there was any hanky-panky."

Imran Khan also issued a call for the ICC to take firmer action, and for the all cricket boards to abandon self-interest in the investigation and punishment of culprits.

"The reason why it is still alive is because the cricket boards tried to protect their own," he continued. "The ICC was never strong enough to prevail on all the cricket boards to treat match fixing as a problem of international cricket rather than a problem of one or two international teams.

"That has created further doubts and instead of finishing the match fixing controversy, the controversy has gained momentum and become even more mysterious."

Imran's final comments seemed to warn of a bleak future for the game, with plenty more controversy to come.

"We are nowhere near the truth, we are still scratching the surface. There has been a lot more dealing between the bookies and the players than has come out.

"I am very sceptical about getting to the bottom of the controversy unless the ICC investigating committee has some secret card they are going to play which is not obvious at the moment."

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