The fix

I dare not preview the fifth Test; I have no idea who is going to play. Panesar or Swann or both; Harmison or Onions or both; Lee or Clark or Hauritz?

Don't ask me but if you happen to bump into a bookmaker in a bar - you'll know him straight away, dark glasses, talks out of the side of his mouth, tenners sticking out of his top pocket - you could ask him to drop me a line.

Which brings us to the topic of the moment. Match fixing or, as I have always preferred to call it, player fixing. It is more common, it is easier and the rewards are greater.

Let me tell you about another meeting in a bar. Maybe completely accurate, maybe owes a lot to my imagination.

Nasty Bookmaker to gullible batsman: "So how many will you make tomorrow? Nice pitch, the bowling is almost friendly and you are at the top of your game."

GB: "Oh, 70-plus, hopefully."

NB: "If I slipped these bank notes into your top pocket would you consider making 49?"

GB: "Sure. Why not? Hopefully."

NB: "Thanks, mate, you just made me a fortune."

So the bookmaker offers generous odds on GB making fifty, the punters pile on their cash, GB gets out ahead of that target, the punters are not too miffed and the bookmaker can now send his children to Eton, or buy a new Merc, or pay his girl friend's mortgage.

Everyone is happy. Well, except ICC who have been concerned about new growth player fixing for a while but who, surprisingly, did not monitor the IPL T20 matches. Not in India, home of the first generation Nasty Bookies, or South Africa home of their late companion Hansie Cronje? Why not?

Perhaps the Australian approached in the team hotel bar misread the signs, or was too sensitive to the chance of an approach and that the man was a genuine punter only interested in a bit of inside knowledge for his private betting purposes. Perhaps the player should have forgotten all about the meeting.

But, no. He did the right thing by reporting his suspicions and alerting the ICC sniffer dogs to a new outbreak of rabid twisted betting and setting them up for a look at the IPL, the ICL and all the other new-born, cash-rich T20 leagues.

My guess is that the fix has been in all the time but who knows. The bookies are better at keeping secrets than the Ashes team managements so what chance have we got.