Topely, who quit the county game in 1994 because of his disillusionment at the way he had been treated in the wake of his allegations of corruption. insists that former England fast bowler Neil Foster had told him that Essex had done a deal with Lancashire which would allow the northern county to win the Sunday League match in return for an easy ride for Essex in the resumed championship fixture.

Lancashire was at that time of the season (late August) pressing for the Sunday title, while Essex was on their way to winning the championship.

Topley specifically mentions the lack of support he received from Graham Gosh, the former England captain and then his county captain at Essex. He says he was made to feel “a pariah” by cricket officials and fellow players.

But now, six years on, Topley’s claim that the 1991 championship and Sunday League matches between Essex and Lancashire at Old Trafford were fixed has become the subject of a new investigation by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Gooch was not in charge of Essex in those games of nine years ago; his deputy Neil Foster had led the county in the championship fixture and Derek Pringle had taken over for the Sunday League game which was played in between the second and final days of the first-class fixture. Neil Fairbrother, like Foster and Pringle an England international, skippered Lancashire in both fixtures.

Fairbrother has refused to comment publicly on the re-opened investigation, while Foster says: “Anything of that sort would have been completely contrary to my feelings for the game”. Pringle, now cricket correspondent of the Independent newspaper, said: “I wrote an article five years ago expressing my surprise at Topley’s claims. I have nothing further to add.”

In the Sunday match Topley claims he was ordered to bowl badly, which he subsequently did. He says one of the umpires standing in that match actually made an innocent comment about how poorly he did bowl!

But, following the revelations of India’s match-fixing inquiry, England’s cricket authorities have begun to take Topley seriously and, indeed, have reportedly heard new evidence from fresh witnesses - among them some other retired Essex players. Lord MacLaurin, the ECB chairman, is the main force behind this new investigation, and Topley is happy that English cricket’s top man is getting involved.

“I take back nothing I said six years ago,” said Topley. “I welcome the re-opening of this case because I believe I have been totally vindicated by the revelations that have been made in the game recently.

“I am ashamed of my own actions in the Sunday game back in 1991. I had to keep telling myself that winning a Sunday match wasn’t that important, but I didn’t like what was going on.

“In 1994 the old Test and County Cricket Board dodged the issue, but I don’t believe that will happen with this new ECB investigation. I have been impressed with Lord MacLaurin’s determination to find out what has been going on, although I don’t think he realises how deep this goes.

“I am very intrigued to know what MacLaurin’s investigation has uncovered - and what it is prepared to reveal.”

Topley’s story has already been supported, however. Back in 1994 Guy Lovell, a second eleven spinner brought in to the Sunday game as a late replacement for Peter Such, said: “It was in the pavilion around lunchtime on Sunday when coach Keith Fletcher and secretary Peter Edwards had left the room that Foster came in and announced: “We have done a deal. If we lose today we win the three-day game tomorrow”.

“I was shocked but didn’t protest and the senior players didn’t seem fazed. I was told to keep my mouth shut, not to tell officials or bet on the result.

“It is true that Don Topley began to bowl some very bad balls, wides that gave the batsmen an easy job.”

Topley, now 36, also coached Zimbabwe in the 1992 World Cup, but soon left the game altogether to concentrate on a full-time teaching career. The medium pacer played 120 first-class matches for Essex between 1985 and 1994, taking 367 wickets at 27.64.

He added: “I became a pariah within the game because I revealed what had been going on. I have never been forgiven but now I have been totally vindicated. I was the first to raise the issue of skulduggery going on in the game in England but my evidence was pooh-poohed.

“Some very high-profile players were involved in those two games between Essex and Lancashire, including Wasim Akram and Salim Malik. People smelled a rat at the time but I was called a liar in the same way as Chris Lewis was when he revealed last summer that he’d been told England players had been involved in fixing games.

“But the big difference was that Lewis only told them what he’d heard whereas I’d actually been told.”

Nasser Hussain, the current England captain, also played in those 1991 games but there is no evidence to suggest that he - or Akram and Malik for that matter - were involved in the alleged deal.

What is certain is that Topley’s story, and the case that has been re-opened, remains a source of acute embarrassment for the England authorities. If MacLaurin is successful in rooting out more corruption (and another 1991 ‘Sunday sandwich’ of county matches between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is also being investigated) then what long-term harm will that do to the image of the English game?

As Topley says: “This current situation didn’t develop overnight. People have been getting away with things and, human nature being what it is, they have taken it a bit further each time.

“I have grave worries, for instance, that this business of passing information to bookmakers is only the tip of the iceberg. It may seem innocent enough but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out what damaging consequences it might have.”