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Cricket lost its innocence a decade ago when match-fixing allegations were first confirmed. Three captains, Salim Malik from Pakistan, Azzurudhin from India and Hansie Cronje, were banned for life. Cricket lost its innocence when Bob Woolmer died in circumstances that still remain clouded. There is suspicion Cronje’s death in a plane crash was more engineered than accidental.
Cricket has now lost its credibility with the latest allegations of spot-fixing. Sadly, Pakistan is once again at the centre of these allegations.
Pakistan has in Mohammed Aamir the next best thing since Wasim Akram.
“I was even skinnier than him when I was 18,” said Wasim, and he has high hopes for this young man. In Umar Gul, they have a practioner of the toe-crusher that would land him a walk-up start in Underbelly.
Umar Akmal is an attacking batsman and a handy legspinner in the Mushtaq Mohammed class, and could be a world beater.
Pakistan bloods its cricketers young and there is a lesson in this for those that made Mark Waugh and Hussey wait a lifetime in their apprenticeship. If Steven Smith was a Pakistani, he would have played a hundred Tests by now.
Thankfully, he has grown up in a culture that abhors collusion and corruption.
Can we, as an inclusive and caring world community, allow this phylloxera of match-fixing to continue? It is irrelevant if it is an Indian, Pakistani or Australian. Anyone guilty should be banned for life.
It is a sad indictment of the Indian system that has exonerated Mohammad Azzurudhin and, for good measure, made him a Member of Parliament.
The retired head of the ICC Anti Corruption watchdog, Paul Condon, has stated the shortest form of the game is ripe for match fixing. The fixers never went away. They only went underground.
It is not for nothing that criminals are referred to as the underworld. It is a world where life is cheaper than at your Two Dollar shop.
Life for the Pakistan people cannot be easy. Their terror comes from within and the enemy is not easily distinguishable. When an Islamic School is bombed, it is different to the bombing of a military target or a political target.
This is killing and maiming your own. Pakistan is an aspiring democracy and a Military dictatorship rolled in one. Poor families living on the edge of death have a different set of principles from those in comfortable democracies with vast social security nets. If Aamir is guilty of spot-fixing, it is understandable but it cannot be forgiven.
The Pakistan people have been failed by their leaders, both civilian and military. Dr. Ashraf, the last President of the Pakistan Cricket Board, is comfortably ensconced in the USA and his benefactor Pervez Musharaff is on a lucrative world speaking tour.
The politicians and generals have systematically propagated politics of hate and, one suspects, brazenly increased their Swiss Bank balances. Is it any wonder that some of its citizens are compromised?
Cricket needs a large dose of ethics and transparency. If it does not take this medicine willingly, then it must be forcibly administered.
Not another inquiry like the Quayum Clayton’s of ten years ago. Spiro Zavos has called for someone like John Howard to head an independent enquiry. I have my own reservations about a politician overseeing any commission.
I am not comfortable that Sharad Pawar is the head of the ICC.
Cricket is stained and no amount of Lady Macbeth hand-rubbing will erase the taint. The guilty, if proven, must face a Siberian ban. A lifetime for a cricketer is ten years and this should be the minimum punishment.
I have said for a very long time that the dressing room is sacred. It is for the players and not for their agents. Or friends or benefactors. You have to earn the right to sit in the dressing room, and the only way is to be a player.
There is enough money in world cricket to fund a permanent and effective watchdog. This watchdog has to be a snarling Rottweiler that will deter players and fixers. There has to be a shoot at sight mentality to combat this scourge.
Fines in this day and age do not suffice. Players found guilty have to be rubbed out, to use mafia slang. Match and spot-fixing is cricket’s own version of terrorism.
Where does it start and where does it end?
Deep in the netherworld where conscience and ethics are trampled. If cricket does not act now, it will become a pantomime. Much like professional wrestling.
It is easy for us to say a commission must be set up. But this is dangerous territory. Respected former players are reluctant to be involved lest their safety be compromised.
This is not a job for civilians or even journalists.
Scotland Yard is conducting an investigation and the full force of the law should be unleashed on the guilty. The News of the World is not really the bible of credible journalism and the sting they have instigated may well have a sting in the tail.
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