India's code of conduct

Indian cricketers will be presented with a strict code of conduct in a response to the match-fixing scandal which has rocked the sport. "The Board of Control for Cricket in India has assured it will formulate a code of conduct for its players and implement the same as soon as possible," said a statement from International Cricket Council president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, yesterday.

Dalmiya's missive came after a meeting between the ICC and the BCCI on the match-fixing crisis. It said the BCCI will direct all its present and former office bearers, members, players, officials, coaches and managers to subject themselves to a Delhi police inquiry. The BCCI is to ask the Indian government to provide security for those wishing to disclose facts relating to match-fixing.

Kapil Dev, one of the sub-continent's foremost players, has called for a widespread clean-up operation to root out any players involved in the betting scandal. Kapil Dev said he was ashamed to be a cricketer on the day Hansie Cronje admitted to taking money from a bookmaker. But the Indian Test player, who insisted he has never been offered money from bookmakers in return for information, hopes some good can come out of the crisis. "It has hurt me," he said. "I was ashamed to be a cricketer at that moment. It is terribly sad."

Cronje admitted to the United Cricket board of South Africa he accepted money from an Indian bookmaker in return for information in the one-day series between India and South Africa.

Kapil Dev added: "I can't believe it happened under our noses. I've never been approached by a bookmaker. We heard rumours and stories, but it's difficult to believe what has gone on. Now we have a chance to really clean up the game. The administrators, government and the media will have failed if they don't clean up something that is bad for the sport."

The former India captain flatly denied reports which claimed he had hinted that Cronje was known to be accepting bookmakers' cash. Instead, he said the news had come as a complete surprise. He urged the disgraced South African captain to admit publicly how he was lured into the control of Indian bookmakers to try and prevent others from following his example.

He said: "If he can tell how he became a weak person he will help a generation of other people."

In Johannesburg yesterday the South Africa Board said it will investigate reports of a 1996 team meeting at which Cronje and his players were allegedly offered £250,000 to lose a game against an Indian XI. "I will be asking each and every one of our contracted players who were on the 1996-97 tour to tell me exactly what happened," the UCB managing director, Ali Bacher, said.