England captain Strauss calls on players to 'flush out' bribe-takers

London : Cricket's anti-corruption police acted swiftly on Wednesday, interviewing a senior county cricketer who admitted to the Daily Telegraph that he had been offered money to fix a match, while England captain Andrew Strauss urged his fellow professionals to flush out any players they suspected of taking a bribe.

On a day of further match-fixing revelations, the county game was hit by news that a second player had reported an approach from a bookmaker to the England and Wales Cricket Board, which has passed both cases to the police.

As concerns mounted over the targeting of the English domestic game by bookmakers from Asia, one former cricketer even suggested that up to five more players have been approached, who had not passed on the details to the authorities.

Strauss, who has spent the past six weeks playing county cricket for Middlesex, called for players to come clean. He said: "We step out on the pitch and play as hard as we can — if one of our teammates is not then there shouldn't be any loyalty shown to him. We have a duty as players to make sure that if we hear of it or are approached by someone we come forward and report it straight away. It is the only way of ironing it out. It is not something the game can do with. There are a lot of measures in place and hopefully those will be stepped up if necessary."

On Tuesday the Daily Telegraph reported how one senior county player had been told he could "name my own price" to guarantee the result of a county match.

He was spoken to on Wednesday by an officer from the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit, which will now attempt to verify his allegations and track down the businessman concerned.

He is believed to be an Indian property developer who has known the player for a number of years, which gives an indication of how long the grooming process can take. The county game is already fighting financial pressures, threatened splits over the future of Twenty20 cricket and an ongoing police investigation into alleged spot-fixing that led to two Essex players arrested last week.