Strauss: ICC is ‘toothless’ in fight with corruption

England captain Andrew Strauss has branded international cricket’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit “a toothless tiger”.

Strauss remains concerned that the spot-fixing scandal which saw three Pakistan players jailed was uncovered by the press rather than the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit.

He believes the ICC should be doing more and welcomed the jail sentences for Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir as a deterrent.

Strauss said: “For me, there’s still a lot of questions to be answered because they weren’t exposed by any of the cricketing members, they were exposed by the News of the World. I still think the ICC could be doing a lot more than they are doing. Unfortunately, the anti-corruption unit is a pretty toothless tiger.

“They can’t get into the real depth of it all because they haven’t got the resources available to them. I don’t hold it against them, they’re doing the best job they possibly can.

“They can’t do sting operations like the News of the World, they can’t infiltrate these betting networks. They’ve tried their best. I’m very hopeful that only a minor percentage of cricketers are involved in it, hopefully that is the case but the truth is we really don’t know.”

He added: “It’s hard to be happy or satisfied when something like this happens. I think it is fantastic that there’s been some sort of repercussions for what these guys did and there’s some sort of deterrent there.”

Strauss insisted the scandal would not affect his view of future matches against Pakistan. “No, look, you play against 11 other cricketers and one of the strong traits we try to foster within the England team is you worry about yourself and your own performance,” said Strauss.

“That’s what we’ll be doing in Dubai and it’ll be another keenly contested series, as it always is against Pakistan, and what’s gone on is water under the bridge.”