On Air: Has cricket been discredited?
| 11:25 UK time, Monday, 30 August 2010
There is an expression in cricket - that a player out of form cannot buy a run. Well, now we have, we are told, learned exactly how much you can buy a run for - £150,000.
Specifically, that's the amount newspaper paid to a middleman, Mazhar Majeed, to be told exactly when Pakistan bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif would bowl three no-balls.
The British tabloid's headline in full was shocking reading to cricket fans globally: "Caught! Match-fixer pockets £150,000 as he rigs the England Test at Lord's."
There will be a full investigation, but there are a number of reasons for the explosive reaction already.
Partly it that the acts are so blatant and in such clear correlation to what was predicted. The no-balls themselves are so far over the line that the commentators watching were astounded, Ian Botham saying "it's like net bowling."
Then there is the fact that this was at the home of cricket, in the deciding Test of a series in front of a full house - including both myself and World Have Your Say's editor Mark - and with millions watching on television. It is this that has triggered much of the outrage. Former :
Anger is my thought at the moment. It's just a great shame why this has to happen. Very sad.
As someone who had paid £90 for a ticket, I would echo that feeling. The essence of sport is its unpredictablilty; the feeling that any moment something spectacular could happen, that the outcome can never be pre-determined.
Take that out of the game and all you are left with a soap opera, like professional wrestling.
There is also the sad aspect, , that:
There are so many awful things happening in Pakistan at the moment, with floods devastating the country. The cricket team was something they could all cling to. The fans over there must have been terribly proud when they beat England at The Oval. It would be a tragedy if Pakistan's long-suffering fans find their trust has been misplaced.
But there were already suspicions that all was not what it seemed in Pakistani cricket. Some see a pattern of questionable moments in matches such as the 2006 Oval Test - awarded to England following Pakistan's refusal to play - or the 2009 Champions Trophy. This led up to a shocking defeat against Australia earlier this year in Sydney in a match Pakistan looked to be coasting.
explained:
Kamran Akmal dropped a couple of catches for which he was under the scanner. He has been dropping one catch too many ever since. Things were said & done. Few players were banned and some bans were revoked so early that many people did not even know they were banned!
As puts it, in a blog post headlined "Pakistan Cricket Is Corrupt To The Core":
The headline "Pakistan Cricketers Are Cheats" doesn't seem appropriate as a one-off, because it could really apply to a dozen incidents in the last 10 years.
So is Pakistan's cricket "institutionally corrupt"?
Well, team manager Yawar Saeed says not. And captain Salman Butt - named by Majeed as the ringleader of the group - maintains he and his team-mates had "given our best".
"These are just allegations and anybody can stand out and say anything about you, doesn't make them true."
But Pakistan's fans seem to hold out little hope that there may be another explanation.
Indeed, some of the strongest condemnation has come from them, such as :
If indeed these allegations are proven true, these cheats - and by that one means not only the fixer but any players or officials involved - should be treated as exactly that: cheats and liars and frauds and given the full punishment for being that. Certainly, this magnitude of lying and cheating should be cause for a permanent removal from ever representing the national side again.
There is some :
It would be heartbreaking if it is proved that young Amir was knowingly involved and on his own accord. A prodigious talent who has taken international cricket by storm, and recently made the shortlist for ICC's Emerging Player of the Year, would have wasted such a promising career and disgraced himself, his family and his nation.
Meanwhile the News Of The World itself claims it is "the most sensational sporting scandal ever." But is it?
Pakistan's players were not, after all, aiming to deliberately lose the match. The three runs they conceded through the no-balls were never likely to have much bearing on the outcome.
Almost exactly a year ago, admitted in his autobiography that he attempted to fix the time of the first throw-in in a Premiership match. There was barely a stir. The English Crown Prosecution Service investigated the comments before deciding it would not be worth their resources.
Of course, the stakes and the occasion was much less significant. But in terms of the advantage given to the opposition, the comparison bears weight. Three runs in the extras column is rarely significant in the long form of the game - in the same way that conceding a throw-in in the first minute is unlikely to pose serious problems.
Meanwhile it may be unfair to single Pakistan out. Last year India captain Mohammad Azharuddin and batsman Ajay Sharma received life bans from their own domestic board on the basis of testimonies from bookmakers.
As put it at the gates of Lord's this morning :
It's very regrettable but this has always happened, right back to the 18th century - betting on matches. WG Grace himself was a cheat.
What's your reaction to the allegations? Do you feel they have shamed cricket? What should Pakistan's cricket board do in reaction? Should their tour of England continue? Is Pakistani cricket institutionally corrupt?
