The game of cricket has often been rocked by match-fixing and corruption. Allegations of fixing, including the new phenomenon of spot-fixing, have emerged occasionally, tarnishing the image of the gentleman's game.
With cricket's biggest extravaganza - the ICC Cricket World Cup - coming up next year in Australia and New Zealand, a potential threat has been unearthed by the New Zealand police.
World's top cricketers who will fly down under for the 50-over world cup have been warned that the underworld criminals are planning to use honey traps as a weapon during the tournament.
New Zealand police has warned that crooks may use female agents to lure cricketers into match-fixing. (Getty Images)
According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, fixers will use female honey traps in an attempt to obtain sexually compromising pictures of the players that can be used to blackmail them.
The World Cup will be hosted jointly by Australia and New Zealand and the police in New Zealand are on high alert to depose off possible threats.
A list of cricket match-fixers has been drawn up by police and anti-corruption investigators in a bid to stop them at the border before the World Cup next year, theNew Zealand Herald report said.
The newspaper added that passengers coming into New Zealand will be profiled at Auckland airport and be turned away at the border if they are suspected of having connections to betting rings.
"We know they bring in women into the country to fraternise with players. Afterwards, they'll ask the players to do something and if they refuse they'll say, 'Well, see these photographs? They will be with your wife, your neighbours, your parents," Superintendent Sandra Manderson, police chief for the Cricket World Cup, was quoted as saying in the report.
"There are millions and millions of dollars at stake in match fixing," Manderson added.
But despite the increased vigilance from the International Cricket Council and other concerned authorities, many cricketers have in past got embroiled into fixing.
New Zealand's Lou Vincent, earlier this year, admitted that he was a "cheat" and was slapped with a life ban by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on 14 counts of match-fixing.
Cricket's biggest match-fixing scandal was unearthed in 2000, when South Africa's Hansie Cronje admitted he had accepted money to throw matches.
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