In the same week that Pakistan cleared its players of any wrongdoing during the 1999 World Cup, Lord Condon, director of the sport's Anti-Corruption Unit, warned the ICC that the era of match-fixing was not quite at an end. Condon, the former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, was speaking at an ICC business forum at Lord's, where he outlined a blacklist of around 100 people who will be banned from attending the 2003 World Cup in South Africa. The names included several former players and bookmakers, and, he added, in an ideal world, it would include certain people still playing professional cricket.

"My view is that there is a small number of players who, in an ideal world, would not be playing now - it's fingers on one hand we're talking about," said Condon. "There isn't enough hard evidence to stop them playing."

Nevertheless, Condon was adamant that the players concerned were not longer involved with bookmakers: "Players who may have been tempted in the past have not done so in the last year or more," he said. "I'm confident from our network of information that if players were reckless enough to come back into this, we would be aware of it."

"Until the spring of last year serious match-fixing was still taking place. I think we are now on top of that situation but we certainly cannot be complacent."

Troublesome international venues such as Sharjah are now given better protection, but Condon admitted that he had recently been approached by people convinced that certain matches in the past year had been fixed, and two Indian defeats have come under particular scrutiny. The first was the defeat to Kenya in Port Elizabeth in October 2001, the second came when they were beaten by Zimbabwe in Kochi in March, a match that was speculated on at length by Scyld Berry in an article for The Sunday Telegraph.

Condon said: "It's an understandable curse that world cricket has brought upon itself.

"But based on our contacts with police sources around the world, I am 100% certain that the matches I have described in the last 12 months have been clean.

"If anyone knows something different I would be delighted if they could provide me with something more tangible than speculation."

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