Spot-fixing is rife in the game - Lalit Modi

Former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi says an attempt was made on his life in South Africa for refusing to fix an IPL game. There were three occasions where his life had been threatened. The first of which was in Mumbai at the end of March 2009, he told author Ed Hawkins in an interview for a book titled "Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Cricket's Underworld".

"There was a shoot-out outside my house and one guy got killed and one got picked up," Mali said.

The other attempts came in South Africa in April of the same year and in Phuket, Thailand, in January 2010. On each occasion he had been warned by the police or the intelligence agencies.

"Spot-fixing is rife in the game. And I'm talking globally," Modi said.

"It's a Pandora's box. It's staring you straight in the face, but [it's] difficult to prove. Almost impossible to prove."

He said some players had to be warned about the presence of bad influences, who often toured with the teams.

"I think it [IPL] was clean, but I could never, sitting here today, categorically tell you that we picked up everything for spot-fixing, and that goes for all games, not just IPL," Modi said.

"It's extremely difficult to spot. We had to warn players from time to time.

We found undesirable elements in the stadium and removed them. We found them touring with players, or managers of players who were in touch with bookmakers, and we removed them."

He said the players should take responsibility for corruption and spot-fixing, instead of pretending it was not happening around them.

"It's their game. The game is by them, for them and of them.

They need to be speaking out instead of pushing it under the carpet, which is normally the case," he said.

"They need to come out and tell the truth. No one will know better if it is happening than the team-mates. If they won't talk or give information it's difficult for anyone else to know."

Hawkins, a sports and gambling journalist, said his book aimed to get under the fingernails of the bookmakers, punters and fixers who sought to corrupt cricket.

In doing so, he was given the names of 45 former and current international and domestic cricketers who were alleged to have been involved in corrupt activities. None were named in the book for legal reasons.

All of the information gathered in researching the book had been passed to the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.