In 2000, Cronje was charged by Delhi police with fixing one-day matches against India for money.

Cronje denied the charges, which also implicated some of his teammates.

But he was sacked just days after his denial, after confessing his dishonesty to the South African board. He acknowledged receiving money for "providing information and forecast but not match-fixing".

Testimony by current and former players to South Africa's King's Commission later that year revealed that the allegations stemmed back to the mid '90s and encompassed Test cricket as well as one-day matches.

Cronje admitted in his own testimony that he accepted money from bookmakers and that his "great passion of the game and for my teammates" was matched by "an unfortunate love of money".

Cronje was banned from cricket for life. He died in 2002.

His teammates Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams received six-month bans from international cricket after pleading guilty to charges of accepting an offer to underperform in a one-day international in India.

In 1994-95, Australian cricketers Shane Warne and Mark Waugh were given money by a bookmaker in return for pitch and weather information on Australia's tour of Sri Lanka.

Waugh and Warne said they refused to hand over more strategic material and the Australian Cricket Board privately fined the players. The issue did not become public until 1998.

More recently, scandal hit Pakistan cricket in 2010 when three cricketers were accused of spot-fixing in a Test match at Lord's.

A News of the World investigation named Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir as members of the team who were deliberately underperforming at particular times.

The three cricketers were banned by the ICC - Butt for 10 years (five suspended), Asif for seven (two suspended) and Amir for five years.

Butt, Asif and Amir were also the subject of a criminal investigation and they, along with Mazhar Majeed, the man who bribed them, were found guilty by an English court of conspiracy to cheat at gambling and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments.

Butt was sentenced to 30 months in jail, Asif one year, Amir six months, and Majeed received a sentence of two years and eight months.

More recently, former New Zealand cricketer Lou Vincent was handed 11 life bans from cricket by the England and Wales Cricket Board after admitting to taking part in match-fixing.

Ex-New Zealand cricket Chris Cairns was cleared of allegations of match-fixing after an eight-week London trial in 2015.

Cairns was cleared of a perjury charge, and both he and his co-accused, Andrew Fitch-Holland, were found not guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Lalit Modi had in 2010 tweeted Cairns had been excluded from the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction due to his "past record of match fixing". Cairns, who had no record of match-fixing, took legal action.

Cairns won his legal battle with Modi in March 2012, and was awarded costs and damages.

But when Vincent confessed to match-fixing in August 2013, he alleged Cairns was a cricket cheat to the ICC and Metropolitan Police. So did New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, in 2011.

Cairns was then accused of lying under oath in his 2012 libel trial win against Modi.

Vincent told the court Cairns introduced him to the dark art, instructing him to fix games for the Chandigarh Lions in the 2008 Indian Cricket League (ICL).

His role as an opener was to score 10 to 15 runs off 20 balls, then get out.

McCullum gave evidence that Cairns in 2008 twice tried to line him up as a fixer, once in a hotel in India, where he was in the IPL, and again in a cafe in England.

When Cairns emerged from court after being cleared, he said the British legal system had vindicated him.

In 2016, former South African opener Alviro Petersen was banned for two years by Cricket South Africa over breaches of the anti-corruption code, in relation to match-fixing during the 2015-16 season of a domestic Twenty20 competition.

CSA withdrew charges relating to match-fixing and accepting or offering bribes, but Petersen was banned for failing to disclose details of an approach to engage in corrupt conduct, failing to disclose evidence of another participant breaching the code, failing to cooperate with investigators by not providing accurate and complete information and concealing and destroying information relevant to the investigation.

Other players were investigated and sanctioned over the scandal.

Fairfax Media, with Stuff.co.nz