Mervyn Westfield, former Essex medium-pacer, has been convicted for charges related to spot-fixing after he pleaded guilty of accepting money to concede a particular number of runs on an over.
The sentencing for Westfield will happen on February 10 and he could face up to seven years in jail. More recently, the Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt were convicted and jailed by the English courts on the same charges.
Westfield said that he accepted £6000 to allow 12 runs to be made off his opening over in one of Essex's Pro40 matches in 2009. In the end, he failed to give away those many runs in that over of the match that was televised live.
Another interesting development that took place was the announcement made by Judge Anthony Morris about the involvement of another cricket-related person in the case. He said, "It seems the alleged corruptor is a person whose name is known to me, and I'm sure known to many people interested in cricket."
The prosecution accused the former Essex bowler of accepting the payment for giving away 12 runs but only 10 runs came in that over. His counsel, Mark Milliken-Smith, asked the judge for leniency on the grounds that the plan did not fructify and that there was an attempt to snare Westfield for some of the future games.
Milliken-Smith said: "The prosecution is based almost entirely on what he unguardedly told fellow players. The aim was to snare for future activity. The reality is, on any view, he didn't do what he was supposed to have done."
What is spot-fixing?
Wikipedia defines spot-fixing as ‘Illegal activity in a sport where a specific part of a game is fixed.’ In cricket, it is the illegal fixing of certain events within the game, instead of fixing the game itself, which is a much more difficult task to achieve and may require the involvement of many more cricketers. In case of spot-fixing, even one cricketer can influence a certain passage of play like the number of runs in a particular over or bowling no-ball on a particular delivery – as in the case of the Amir, Asif and Butt controversy.
