Johnson had no idea that some of the Sussex players were approached by a bookie

England county side Kent have announced that they had no idea some of the Sussex players were approached by a bookie in the lead up to their highly anticipated CB40 match in 2011.

Kent stated that they only learnt of the claims when it had been published in a book called Bookie, Gambler, Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Corrupt Heart of Cricket’s Underworld, which apparently gives detailed accounts into how some of the Sussex players were offered large sums of money to deliberately lose the match.

Sussex have already confirmed that a number of their players were approached to take part in the illegal activity and a complaint has been made to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).

However, after an internal investigation, no Sussex players were indicted and there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on anyone else’s part as well.

Kent’s chairman of cricket Graham Johnson said: “We’d actually heard nothing, when it came out in the press that was the first Kent were aware of it. Sussex said they were looking into certain things and it was internal. We’ve said is there anything you need from us but they said it’s internal and dealt with.”

Speaking about the dangers of match-fixing spreading to the English county league, Johnson added: “Obviously history tells us that if stuff starts getting televised in the subcontinent it raises the profile and the potential for that to happen.”

Kent chief executive Jamie Clifford stated that these allegations by Sussex showed that bookies are trying to start influencing the results in different tournaments and added that all players and officials should keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.

“You’ve got the issues relating to players at Essex and now the revelations from Sussex about players being approached,” Clifford said. “Those are two of our neighbouring counties so I think we’d be naïve to say ‘oh we don’t think there’s any problem’. We have to be alive to the dangers.”

With Sussex’s claims having rocked England’s domestic cricketing scene, Clifford noted that Kent had already started taking precautions into ensuring that none of their players are approached by bookies.

“Our staff, both playing and off-field are briefed regularly about the potential that exists in relation to match and spot fixing and urged to be extremely vigilant in that regard,” Clifford added. “They know very clearly that as a club there’s no way we’d tolerate any involvement of any individual in something like that. The onus is on them if they’re approached to make it clear to us at a very early stage that that has happened.”