Integrity unit's eye on Big Bash

Cricket Australia's integrity unit has been kept busy since its December formation, with figures showing global betting on the KFC T20 Big Bash League exceeding $600 million.

The extent of the betting highlights the Big Bash's global popularity with Cricket Australia confident it has robust anti-corruption measures in place.

CA's integrity unit was established in December – ahead of BBL|03 – to consolidate into a single department CA's existing anti-corruption functions. As well as the anti-corruption measures the unit also deals with code of behaviour issues and the CA anti-doping and illicit substance program.

Brisbane's The Courier-Mail claimed to have obtained figures showing that $573m had been bet globally on the Betfair exchange on 22 Big Bash games before last night's win by the Sydney Thunder that snapped a 19-game losing streak. Another $30m was said to have been taken by other corporate and online bookmakers.

A Cricket Australia spokesman said the governing body had a "long-standing, proactive approach to sports integrity management".

"While betting on sport is not new to our community, the increase in its popularity in recent years has seen us take significant steps to ensure we safeguard the integrity of our competitions. We have a series of official betting partners which assist us in the ongoing integrity management of all CA competitions, by agreeing to information sharing and other integrity requirements that we specify," the spokesman said.

"We engaged an external bet monitoring company (Sportradar) last year to provide intelligence on the nature and volume of betting on domestic cricket matches, as one of the many functions of our newly formed integrity unit."

Sportradar's deal with CA was signed in November, when CEO Carsten Koerl said: "It’s critical in today’s world that sports governing bodies confront the threat of betting related match-fixing and have robust preventative, detection and investigation methods in-place. Cricket Australia is doing just that and Sportradar is delighted to be partnering with them to help protect their competitions against the threat posed from match-fixers."

The Courier-Mail claimed more than $47m was bet on the Hobart Hurricanes and Perth Scorchers Big Bash clash at the WACA on January 7, a game that Perth won by six runs.

CA’s integrity unit is headed by senior legal counsel and integrity manager Iain Roy and reports directly to CEO James Sutherland and legal & business affairs general manager Dean Kino. The unit also works closely with the CA Board’s audit & risk committee.