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Like ‘hero’, the word ‘tragedy’ is thrown around all too easily in modern sportswriting. But if, as seems likely, the damning allegations against several Pakistan cricketers prove to be true, it will be a genuine tragedy for their nation and the sport as a whole.
Pakistan’s most common tag in the media is ‘troubled’. Its decade of instability due to religious extremism, including the exile of international cricket, has been capped off by the massive floods of recent weeks. The millions left homeless would have been looking to their team’s performance in England for some kind of solace or escape.
Captain Salman Butt delivered a win in the third Test against England, and dedicated it to his people.
But a few days later that intent had been cast aside, as the fourth and final Test was subsumed by the latest and most wide-ranging match-fixing scandal in Pakistan’s history.
The News of the World may not be the last word in top-quality journalism (with other headlines on its homepage including “Peggy Mitchell’s best bits” and “Elephant plays harmonica”), but the photos and recordings its undercover reporters made while posing as representatives for a gambling cartel make compelling evidence.
Mazhar Majeed, the UK agent for a number of Pakistani players, promised the reporters three no-balls in a day’s Test play, two from Mohammad Amir and one from Mohammad Asif, as proof the players had been bought and would follow directions.
The reporters would then be invited to pay for advance notice of rigged results in future matches. Aside from the bowlers, Majeed claimed to have seven players in his pocket, naming skipper Salman Butt and keeper Kamran Akmal.
A specific over and delivery was nominated for each no-ball. The next day, each was duly delivered right on time. “[He] will bowl according to any situation, or in such a way that the team requires him to bowl,” said Amir of his strike partner Asif in a recent interview.
Unfortunately this looked true in exactly the wrong kind of way.
Not only did the no-balls arrive as directed, but Asif’s front foot was six inches over the line and Amir’s more like twelve. While the allegations need to be fully investigated, such exaggerated and unusual overstepping hardly suggests accident or coincidence.
Incredibly, Amir’s infringement was in the middle of a red-hot run in which he took four English top-order wickets without conceding a run. And herein lies the real heart of the tragedy – the involvement and likely loss to cricket of Amir.
At just 18 years of age, Amir’s pace, aggression, and guile have made him a revelation, his first year of cricket snaring 51 wickets from 14 Tests.
Last week he became the youngest bowler to take a five-wicket haul in England, then repeated the dose days later at Lord’s. He has frequently been compared to the great Wasim Akram, and spoken of glowingly by the man himself. He was ironically named Man of the Series on the same day his match-fixing involvement was allegedly exposed.
Of course, it’s easy to imagine how easily a naive 18-year-old could be pressured by senior players, especially in a faction-laden set-up like Pakistan’s where slighting the wrong person can imperil a whole career. The easy money in previously unimagined quantities and the promises that everything was well organised would have sealed the deal.
In Amir, it looked like Pakistan may have found a champion to carry them for the next fifteen years. Just two days ago, Vic Marks wrote a glowing testimonial in The Guardian.
Now, even if Amir does one day return from exile, his name will be forever tarnished.
Given Akmal’s rich history of dropped catches and ducks, no-one would be too surprised to find the keeper implicated in fixing, nor sad to see him go. But for the bright young hope of Pakistan’s future, and one of the brightest world cricket has seen in an age that struggles to produce exciting and dangerous bowlers, this will be a devastating loss.
At 27 years of age, Asif is a later developer, but still significant. He has 55 victims since his recall last November after a two-year exile, and his career average of under 25 is superb in a team that drops every second catch.
His new-ball partnership with Amir has been lauded recently as the best in the world, including by their captain.
“Watching Mohammad Asif bowling is another cricketing pleasure,” wrote Peter Roebuck just a few weeks ago. Now it seems Roebuck, like Vic Marks and the rest of us, has been duped by a cheat.
Then there’s Salman Butt, and the much-vexed matter of Pakistan’s leadership.
After chewing through captains like Pringles in the last few years, it appeared that Pakistan had stumbled onto a good thing when Butt was hastily appointed midway through this tour. His first match was a breakthrough victory over Australia, his country’s first against that opposition in 15 years. Butt seemed calm and assured. His batting contribution was vital to the win. Two difficult matches later came a strong win against England.
“What seemed to be a summer of growing discontent for Pakistan on the eve of the third Test has now transformed into a summer of hope,” wrote Nagraj Gollapudi on Cricinfo.
“Salman Butt has shown an impressive maturity right from the moment that Shahid Afridi’s abdication thrust the captaincy upon him… So far he has shown the attributes that make a good leader: clarity of speech, original opinions, modesty, fearlessness, an ability and willingness to back his teammates regardless of form, and an openness to suggestions.”
Now, Butt has been named by Majeed as the ringleader of his match-fixing contacts in the Pakistani team.
Of course Butt’s involvement is less readily apparent than that of his opening bowlers, and could easily have been overstated. We can only hope this is the case.
However, it looks depressingly like there will be at least some truth to the reports.
The reaction from the Pakistan camp has been telling. No outrage, no angry denials. Just a red-eyed and underslept captain being shielded by team manager Yawar Saeed at this morning’s press conference.
With more hedging than a maze at a stately English manor, the most that either would say was that they would await the results of Scotland Yard’s investigation. It hardly looked like the response of the wronged or slandered.
And in the context of recent results, the accusations make a lot of sense.
It’s instructive that after destroying England’s top order, Pakistan allowed the hosts back in the game via a 332-run eighth-wicket partnership. News reports at the time puzzled over Butt’s defensive field placings. Suddenly unwelcome explanations begin to present themselves.
In 2009-10 alone, Pakistan has been bowled out for less than 200 on 13 occasions, and for less than 100 on five.
Incredibly, three of their eight lowest totals of all time have come in the past four Tests against England. They collapsed from strong positions chasing 251 against New Zealand, 176 against Australia, and 168 against Sri Lanka. Not to mention their reputation as the worst catching and fielding side in the world.
Team officials could also be included in the list of suspects, given the inexplicable continuing selection of Akmal despite form and disciplinary issues, and his frequent presence as the sole wicketkeeper in a touring party.
Pakistan correspondent Osman Samiuddin counted Akmal as dropping 17 catches off the bowling of Danish Kaneria alone over Kaneria’s last 24 Test matches.
Zulqarnain Haidar was finally brought in to replace Akmal midway through this series, and immediately made a fighting 88 to avert yet another Pakistan collapse. The fixers must have been mouthing words of thanks when he then broke a finger and was sent home. We can only hope that he will return, and that the careers of Akmal and his like receive the closure they deserve.
Oddly, one of the few silver linings is the incidental exoneration of Shahid Afridi. Long-derided by many for being a loose cannon and an egocentric, one might expect to find his name on an idle speculator’s list of likely fixers.
Yet according to Majeed, the one-day captain was a straight arrow, whose players were planning to lose matches under him in the hope of having him replaced by Butt. All this just six months out from the World Cup, when all the talk is of consolidation and stability.
It at least shows that there is one person in Pakistani cricket in whom its fans can place some faith. There are very tough times ahead for Pakistan cricket. A champion is sorely needed to step forward. Afridi showed a lot of public passion for the responsibility of captaincy after he replaced Mohammed Yousuf earlier this year.
Ironically, the impression of Afridi’s dedication and trustworthiness are inspired by the idiosyncratic fashion in which he quit the Test captaincy after just one match, bravely declaring he didn’t have what it took for the game’s hardest form. It was a decision in the best interests of his team, not his personal interest.
This is something that has proved to be all too much of an isolated incidence in the recent years of infighting, egomania, and now, corruption.
Even at the time, there was something symbolic and truly admirable about Afridi’s gesture. And when Butt took over to lead Pakistan to that joyous and cathartic win over Australia, it really did seem that perhaps a new day was about to break. The youthful, energetic, brilliant Amir was the living incarnation of the light in the east, a symbol of potential and revival.
How cruelly it has proved to be not so much a false dawn as the light of an onrushing bushfire.