The first county cricketer in England to be prosecuted for spot-fixing was sentenced to four months in prison at the Old Bailey today.
Former Essex player Mervyn Westfield, 23, was jailed for one count of accepting or obtaining a corrupt payment to bowl in a way that would allow the scoring of runs.
He will serve half the term in prison and a confiscation order was made for £6,000.
He was paid £6,000 to bowl so that a specific number of runs would be chalked up in the first over of a match between Durham and Essex in September 2009.
It was claimed that Westfield was "targeted" by former Essex team mate and Pakistan international Danish Kaneria, who set up the deal.
Passing sentence, Judge Anthony Morris told Westfield: "I am satisfied that you would have known from the outset that what was being offered was a corrupt payment and that you could and should have refused it.
"I am also satisfied that, if you had any concerns about the approaches being made to you, you had an opportunity to mention them to the team captain or management, or if you were nervous of doing so, at least to your friends within the team. You chose not to do so."
He said the person who made the corrupt payment had used the information to influence either a foreign legal betting market, or an illegal one here or overseas.
The payment came to light when another Essex player, Tony Palladino, went to Westfield's Chelmsford flat in September 2009, where the bowler showed him "the most money he had ever seen".
Westfield emptied a plastic bag of rolled-up £50 notes on to his bed, and said Kaneria had told him a "friend" would pay him to concede a certain number of runs.
Essex police said there were no plans to interview Kaneria again although the investigation would remain under review.
Detective Sergeant Paul Lopez said it was now a matter for the cricketing authorities to deal with.
He said: "It has always been notoriously difficult to convict sportsmen and women of spot fixing and corruption because it is so hard to prove that someone has underperformed.
"However we were able to prove that there was a conversation in which Westfield spoke of underperforming and that he had considerable sums of cash being deposited in his bank account.”