A BRITISH court has handed down jail terms to three Pakistan cricketers and an agent for fixing parts of a Test match against England at Lord's last year, while Australian authorities are looking to make match-fixing a criminal offence punishable by jail terms of up to 10 years.
Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt received 30 months in jail - the longest term of the three players.
Fast bowler Mohammad Asif was sentenced to one year, while 19-year-old speedster Mohammad Amir will serve six months. Agent Mazhar Majeed was sentenced to two years and eight months. All four may be released for good behaviour after serving half their terms.
Butt and Asif were found guilty on Tuesday of deliberately bowling three no-balls during the Test in August 2010 as part of a spot-fixing betting scam uncovered by the now-defunct News of the World.
Amir and Majeed had already pleaded guilty to involvement in the scam. The sentences were handed down yesterday by a judge at Southwark Crown Court.
''These offences, regardless of pleas, are so serious that only a sentence of imprisonment will suffice,'' Judge Jeremy Cooke told the four in court.
The judge said future cricket matches would forever be tainted by the fixing scandal. ''Now, whenever people look back on a surprising event in a game or a surprising result, or whenever in the future there are surprising events or results, followers of the game … will be left to wonder whether there has been fixing, and whether what they have been watching is a genuine contest between bat and ball,'' he said.
''What ought to be honest sporting competition may not be such at all.''
The judge added that the Pakistan players had engaged in corruption in a game whose very name used to be associated with fair play. '''It's not cricket' was an adage. It is the insidious effect of your actions on professional cricket and the followers of it that make the offences so serious.
''The image and integrity of what was once a game but is now a business is damaged in the eyes of all, including the many youngsters who regarded you as heroes and would have given their eye teeth to play at the levels and with the skills that you had.''
Cricket Australia is pushing to ensure the nationwide laws are in place well before it hosts the 2015 World Cup.
Butt, Asif and Amir were found guilty under British law of conspiracy to cheat and accept corrupt payments, but no such charges exist in Australia, meaning International Cricket Council bans would have been the extent of their punishments if they had bowled the pre-arranged no-balls here.
Federal and state governments will take the next step towards introducing laws dealing specifically with match-fixing when attorneys-general meet to discuss draft legislation in Hobart later this month.
The move has long been supported by the Coalition of Major Professional Sports, chaired by Cricket Australia head James Sutherland, and CA reiterated the importance of protecting cricket, and especially its showpiece event, against corruption.
''We are very keen to have it in place as soon as possible, and before the ICC World Cup in 2015,'' a CA spokesman said.
The three Pakistani players made final pleas for leniency on Wednesday, while Majeed claimed Butt had instigated the conspiracy.
Amir expressed deep remorse in a statement read to the court by his lawyer. He said he had been so proud when he was handed his first Pakistan shirt that he wanted to sleep in it.
''I do know how much damage this has done to the game, a game which I love more than anything else in the world. I did decide many months ago that I wanted to admit that I deliberately threw two no-balls at the Lord's Test last summer.
''But I know this was very late and I want to apologise for not saying it before. I didn't find the courage to do it at the beginning.''
Butt's lawyer, Ali Bajwa, QC, asked the judge not to make his client suffer any more. ''He's lost the captaincy of the Pakistan cricket team and this was a job he had for five weeks, they won two Tests, and this was the greatest honour of his life,'' he said, adding that he has since been banned by the ICC for five years and is now ''close to unemployable''.
''He has gone from a national hero to a figure of contempt, and his ignominy is complete.
''He does not want to be the cause of his family's suffering. He now has only his liberty and his family left to lose.''