Spot Fixing Scandal Thread: The Legend Continues

[aditya123]

Afridi is actually one of those who have come out of the scandal thus far as being completely clean. The people accused were heard to be extremely annoyed that he'd been made captain instead of Butt as he wouldn't throw proposed ODI matches.

But that does`nt make him a fair and honest cricketer, does it. He`s been made to look like an angel amidst all this mess when in reality he is`nt one. Does it take away from his pitch dancing, ball-biting antics?

 

[MUFC1987]

But that does`nt make him a fair and honest cricketer, does it. He`s been made to look like an angel amidst all this mess when in reality he is`nt one. Does it take away from his pitch dancing, ball-biting antics?

It's going to be a long list if you call everyone who has ever tampered with a ball a cheater and demand they be seen as such.

 

[Themer]

Does it take away from his pitch dancing, ball-biting antics?

No but those things were hilarious and it wasn't deliberately doing things to not perform to the best of your ability nor bowling no balls for money.

If anything his misdemeanors have been for the opposite reason; trying to win the match not money.

 

[Aoun13]

Take the case of Indian cricket which was facing an all-time low at the start of the 2000s when the match fixing scandal broke out. India found a strong leader in Ganguly who played hard, built a team and by the end of the decade India reached the top of the rankings. He had a really great bunch of talented yet genuinely honest cricketers in Kumble,Sachin,Srinath,Dravid,VVS and co who carried the team through the troubled times and set examples for the newer breed to follow.

SA found a similar leaders in Pollock and Smith. Pakistan, however have not only had troubles with finding a stable leader but have had to resort to cheats like Afridi as captain. They need some strong personality who could fix all the mess and build a side free of scumbags. The Pakistani fans deserve a honest side at least, if not a world beating one.

Honesty is no where in Pakistan with this so call democratic government. I was very happy with Musharraf Rule.
Sadly PCB remain as a ████ from a long time and almost whole cricketing structure here needs to planned from start but yet again banning a whole nation will never solve these issues.
In my opinion ICC strongly pass a rule that every board must conduct elections and also ICC must have to keep an eye on boards especially PCB.
Its Cricket which we love as a nation and We don't allow these bastards to snatch it from us for some bucks.

 

[MUFC1987]

I don't think banning the team is the right cause of action here. The team is representative of the Pakistan nation and people, not the 11 men that go out on the field. IF certain members of that 11 are found to be guilty in this, then the players themselves deserve the ban, not the team, that sends out the wrong message. This afterall, has little to do with the Administration side of Pakistan cricket, so it's not like you can blame the PCB for this either. If it is proven, it the actions of a few and you don't punish the majority, because of the minority. At least not in a fair system.

 

[aditya123]

It's going to be a long list if you call everyone who has ever tampered with a ball a cheater and demand they be seen as such.

Yeah. I agree that those were offences done to actually win the game at all costs but those still were blatant incidents of cheating on-field. Ball-biting is as blatant as it gets. Many might have tampered but I don`t know of many who have actually tried to bite the ball :laugh.

Its only in hindsight that we have been made to think of Afridi as an angel. He clearly should`nt be the captain of a team of young impressionable cricketers. Just like these young men should not just be influenced by some scumbags to throw away games, they cannot afford to have a leader who makes it look as if cheating to win games is alright.

aditya123 added 2 Minutes and 18 Seconds later...

I don't think banning the team is the right cause of action here. The team is representative of the Pakistan nation and people, not the 11 men that go out on the field. IF certain members of that 11 are found to be guilty in this, then the players themselves deserve the ban, not the team, that sends out the wrong message. This afterall, has little to do with the Administration side of Pakistan cricket, so it's not like you can blame the PCB for this either. If it is proven, it the actions of a few and you don't punish the majority, because of the minority. At least not in a fair system.

The PCB is in shambles and that is the root cause of all this. The administration has to be blamed. Shoaib and Asif get banned and then the bans get reverted. 6 players get handed bans, some of those life bans but in the end most of them get overturned. What credibility does the administration have then? What is the message that it sends to the players, especially the younger lot?

 

[MUFC1987]

Yeah. I agree that those were offences done to actually win the game at all costs but those still were blatant incidents of cheating on-field. Ball-biting is as blatant as it gets. Many might have tampered but I don`t know of many who have actually tried to bite the ball :laugh.

Its only in hindsight that we have been made to think of Afridi as an angel. He clearly should`nt be the captain of a team of young impressionable cricketers. Just like these young men should not just be influenced by some scumbags to throw away games, they cannot afford to have a leader who makes it look as if cheating to win games is alright.

To me, it just comes down to severity of actions. Ball tampering is no-where near deliberately losing a game, or underperforming because someone told you too. Sure, perhaps Afridi shouldn't be Captain because of that, but he's always struck me as the sort who just gets a bit carried away on the field, rather than it being anything malicious. Like I said, you could call plenty of people cheats that have picked a seam, or rubbed something on a ball for an advantage, but that's relatively small fry compared to match/spot fixing.

But then, perhaps that's just me.

MUFC1987 added 2 Minutes and 10 Seconds later...

The PCB is in shambles and that is the root cause of all this. The administration has to be blamed. Shoaib and Asif get banned and then the bans get reverted. 6 players get handed bans, some of those life bans but in the end most of them get overturned. What credibility does the administration have then? What is the message that it sends to the players, especially the younger lot?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's run well, or shouldn't be looked at, but as far as this issue so far, it's not the boards fault, it's the actions of a few players, so to blame PCB and Pakistan cricket as a whole, in order to ban them, is just wrong in my opinion. The running of the PCB and this spot fixing issue, are two completely different ones, that people are just pushing together as an excuse to push Pakistan away and under the carpet, rather than trying to actively solve the problem.

 

[aditya123]

To me, it just comes down to severity of actions. Ball tampering is no-where near deliberately losing a game, or underperforming because someone told you too. Sure, perhaps Afridi shouldn't be Captain because of that, but he's always struck me as the sort who just gets a bit carried away on the field, rather than it being anything malicious. Like I said, you could call plenty of people cheats that have picked a seam, or rubbed something on a ball for an advantage, but that's relatively small fry compared to match/spot fixing.

But then, perhaps that's just me.

Agreed. Afridi`s offences have been gamesmanship pushed to the limit but he is not someone you want young cricketers to idolize.

aditya123 added 1 Minutes and 55 Seconds later...

They PCB have to be temporarily stripped of test status and forced to hold an election and get this mess sorted out. If the ICC does not act that way, this could prop up again. There have been instances in the past when sporting bodies have done that. I`m sure you`d have a few instances in football where FIFA/UEFA has suspended clubs/governing bodies till they got their acts sorted out.

 

[MUFC1987]

They PCB have to be temporarily stripped of test status and forced to hold an election and get this mess sorted out. If the ICC does not act that way, this could prop up again. There have been instances in the past when sporting bodies have done that. I`m sure you`d have a few instances in football where FIFA/UEFA has suspended clubs/governing bodies till they got their acts sorted out.

Again, you're combining the two issues, when it shouldn't be. If I run out on a saturday and decide to bowl my 3rd ball as a no-ball, should the rest of the club be banned, just because of the actions of one person? Of course not. It's not the PCB's fault that certain players are doing these things for Money.

Sure, perhaps PCB should be looked at in more detail by the ICC, but that has NOTHING to do with spot fixing.

 

[mrtwisties]

I'm so, so disappointed. Asif and Aamer were a delight to watch, and should have been leading Pakistan's attack for the next 6-8 years. What wonderful luck Pakistan had in finding those two, and what a terrible shame that it's run out for them in such a horrendous fashion.

At this stage I'd say it's been proven (albeit not yet in a court of law) that three players have been involved in spot-fixing. There are also strong, credible allegations that the fixing runs rather wider (seven players) and deeper (result fixing) than that, and there are reasonable suspicions by all that an iceberg of corruption is about to surface.

Cricket needs to act decisively to deliver justice and prevent such events from happening again. Had we gotten this right ten years ago, the talents of Asif and Aamer (and who knows how many others) would not now be wasted. That's crime enough - can you imagine how much poorer we would be if the two Ws had never played - but what's even more disturbing is the thought that this could all happen again ten years from now. It has to end here.

We can borrow some pretty simple prevention formulas from the world of real crime. Let's reduce the demand (by banning spot-fixing, or at least accrediting and investigating the bookmakers who offer it), police the supply (monitoring mobile phone records, regularly investigating accounts, paying cricketers better, introducing pension schemes etcetera) and penalise the offence (an independent ICC-level judicial body should be constituted to hand out penalties, led by a respected lion of the sport such as Imran Khan or similar).

The prevention regimen should ultimately be part of the requirements for playing Test cricket. After a suitable migration period, if ANY nation cannot meet these requirements at ANY point, then a match against them should be abandoned until the situation is rectified in the same way as if the pitches were dangerous.

mrtwisties added 6 Minutes and 16 Seconds later...

Sure, perhaps PCB should be looked at in more detail by the ICC, but that has NOTHING to do with spot fixing.

Spot on.

 

[Insomniac]

It can't get much worse, can it.

 

[LongLegs?]

For what it's worth, one of my Paki friends told me that the six(Amir, Asif, Riaz, Amin, Kamran, Butt) all play for National Bank of Pakistan in the domestic circuit. I don't know if anyone mentioned this before, or if it's true, but if true, it's got to be more than just a co-incidence.

 

[subversive]

Spot-fixing: Police investigation will focus on currency notes | Cricket News | England v Pakistan 2010 | Cricinfo.com

Investigators will focus on the currency notes handed over by the News Of The World (NOTW) to Mazhar Majeed as they look for evidence of spot fixing in the Lord's Test involving Pakistani cricketers. Majeed was arrested by Scotland Yard on Saturday night and the investigators will try and determine if the currency notes bear resemblance to those found in the hotel rooms of several Pakistani players.

However, a source familiar with such investigations said he would be hard pressed to explain the currency notes allegedly found in his hotel room if they matched those given to Majeed by NOTW.

"If the notes are the same it would be something serious. It would be direct evidence linking him to what has been claimed by [Majeed]," the source said.

Why is cricket news so slow lol, if something like this had happened in football we'd be updated constantly

 

[ali_ed2001]

Did someone notice that in the video where the match fixer gives his jacket to Wahab..

It seems like when he's in the car, he has a different shirt on, compared to when he's outside giving his jacket to Wahab Riaz.

 

[SciD]

I doubt this bookie and newspaper. If you look at video he is displaying all the money as if he knew its on video. If i am fixing anything i will not take money on table and deckit up nicely to be caught on tape.