- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The cricket world, with its factions, boards and rivalries, is not necessarily as united as we would like to think.
But when it comes to the recent trial of three Pakistani cricketers, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, there is one common thread to the entire reaction: sadness.
‘What sort of state has it got into that such things can happen?’ inquired a grieving former England captain, Mike Brearley.
‘And how big is the iceberg of which the three no-balls were the tip?’ (Guardian, Nov. 5). Brearley is also conscious about the dimension of misspent youth, of errors made in fits of immaturity and impressionable folly.
Then, the rosy Arcadian nostalgia, a time Brearley recalls, when the spot-fixers were not to be found, where the book-makers and sport gamblers were shadows rather than players themselves.
‘I was never asked to throw a match, or an innings (I seemed all too able to get out without even trying).’
Therein, perhaps, lies the answer. To talk about the era that Brearley played as an Eden, is definitely bound to set you for a fall and due expulsion.
Inscribing a moral state into a game, is always dangerous, a tendency that airbrushes the darker parts of the picture. Besides, his era was one of World Series Cricket, when the size and depth of a cricketer’s wallet became an issue for the first time.
Perhaps an incident that blotched the copy book of cricket’s pristine landscape, was recorded by the pen of Jack Fingleton, who claimed that that deity on earth, Don Bradman gave away his innings, when he had added 153 in a three-day match.
Did the herculean batsman do so on the basis of mere calculation of effort? We don’t have any definite answer about it, and there are murmurings about this in Lindsay Hassett’s writings.
And while Brearley claims that there is ‘cheating’ that takes place within the framework of the game (scuffing the ball for instance), there are acts that are totally outside it. In short, gentlemen, should they cheat, must do so the right way.
Spot-fixing and match-fixing have their corrosive effects. Teams and players, who perform badly, immediately attract attention not because of poor form, but because of poor morals and character.
A cloud, for instance, hovered menacingly over RP Singh at the last Test at the Oval in the middle of August, when he was brought on to bowl against a rampant England.
India had already capitulated in the series and Singh had last exercised his skills in a first-class match in January. Rusty and loose, he proved so erratic in his deliveries one wondered whether he even knew where the stumps were.
Invariably, questions were asked. Could anyone be making money on this? The sound of money turning, could be heard.
The fear now is how far this phenomenon has gone. The Pakistan Cricket Board’s chairman Zaka Ashraf has promised reforms that will result in the creation of a ‘special vigilance team’ overseeing cricketers, contracted to play for the PCB.
Cricketers from other countries have been put on notice. The game in its various forms, for instance, is struggling in Australia and can scantly withstand a scandal.
The cricket fan, that ever curious creature of sport, is now sceptical and worried about the game. The verdict may well be a harsh one. One might well cheat within the game, but to trick the game itself has been deemed an unpardonable offence.
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.