My original thoughts having been here.
First: The Pakistani tour bosses have been saying that because there has as yet been no decision under British law to prosecute anyone, no wrongdoing has yet been proved. But the legal problem is that there has to be someone who lost a fraudulent bet, and finding such a person may be difficult, even impossible. But just because the British law may do nothing, that doesn’t mean that cricket doesn’t have any problem. Already, the News of the World has proved to almost everyone’s satisfaction (if that suffices as the word) that no balls were bought and paid for, from Asif and Amir, if only to prove that they could be. That Pakistan test match captain Salman Butt and current Pakistan cricket boss Ijaz Butt refuse to acknowledge this only makes them look guilty also.
Second: Kudos to the British tabloid press. Sport often has reason to resent British news hounds. I was reminded recently, when reading this book, that ace Dutch soccer manager Guus Hiddink (who, unlike current England boss Fabio Capello, is fluent in English as well as soccer) turned down the England job that he would otherwise have loved to do, simply because he couldn’t face his love life being done over by these ghastly people. But this time, a British tab picked a target truly worthy of its ruthless attentions. They nailed down and publicised beyond doubt, within a few weeks, what all the cricket anti corruption units and police forces of the cricket-o-sphere couldn’t in over a decade.
Third: “Innocent until proved guilty” only applies to the legal system. If English cricket fans like me now regard Pakistan cricket as guilty until proved innocent, and most of us now surely do, we can impose our own sentence upon it right now, by refusing to pay to attend any more Pakistan cricket games in our country.
Fourth (the order of these points has now become rather random but I will bash on anyway): It surely doesn’t stop at “spot fixing”, i.e. at just a few no balls that don’t affect the result. Match fixing is surely also involved, still. The Sydney test last winter in Australia, when Pakistan mysteriously threw away a dominant position, and the Lord’s test recently concluded where, whatever official England cricket now says, the Pakistanis did the same thing again, both now look bent. Trott and Broad (who shared in a record stand for England), and the England team in general, understandably don’t want to think this and have said in public that they don’t. But they probably do, just as the rest of us do.
Fifth: England cricket is now busy demonstrating, in concrete and steel, the truth of the Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle, being now deep into a major historic costs swamp. Numerous expensive new stands have recently been built, or at least expensively refurbished, but they mostly can’t now be filled at prices that will pay for all the work that’s been done. Meaningful cricket games cannot be conjured out of thin air even at the best of times, which these times are not, and demand even for good contests is limited. Thus, to cancel the few remaining one day games fixed between England and Pakistan would, just now, be a particular disaster for English cricket. These games will be a disaster anyway, because they are now pretty much meaningless except as a way for the English press to carry on hammering away at this fiasco, but not as big a disaster as they would be if they had been cancelled, because this would have meant all the ticket money so far gathered for them having to be handed back. But, the Pakistanis should not confuse the deeply insincere welcome they will now get for their remaining games here with a general willingness on the part of England cricket to forgive them, i.e. arrange more games with them, or for them, in the foreseeable future. (Whoops. I nearly put “fix” more games.) If the Pakistanis want to go on playing international cricket with England, or in England against anybody else (which is their current arrangement on account of Pakistan itself being too terrorist-menaced for anyone else to visit), they will have to clean up their act.
Sixth: This ruckus here in England has caused a general raking over of the recent history of Pakistan cricket and its various rows. I have already mentioned how the recent test series in Australia is, as Michael Jennings said in connection with my earlier posting about this, being, as it were, re-evaluated. The same applies to things like the big row at the Oval four years ago, which ended prematurely amidst loud Pakistani protestations of complete innocence, this time of ball tampering. Even that run in all those years ago, between England captain Mike Gatting and that Pakistani umpire, starts to look a bit different. So, more significantly, do all the much more recent rows within the Pakistan camp. Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan one day captain for the remainder of the tour, who is said to be a particular hold-out against corruption, behaved very strangely when he recently (a) played like a loon in earlier games in this tour, and then (b) abruptly resigned as the test match captain. It looked crazy at the time. I now suspect that the true behind-the-scenes story might present Afridi in a rather better light. [Later: see also, as explained in the comments: Bob Woolmer, death of.]
Seventh: I have read recent internet comments from Pakistan fans saying that Pakistan has the best fast bowlers in the world, and that the only reason they are being accused of cheating is because the rest of the world, England cricket fans like me in particular, can’t deal with this. Rubbish. If anything, these latest accusations embody the claim that actually, the likes of Asif and Amir are even better than they have recently seemed. They had Australia and England on the ropes recently and could have finished them off. They merely chose not too. How skillful is that?!? Which just goes to show how much is at stake here. A potentially world beating cricket nation, on a par with the West Indies in their pomp towards the end of the last century, and Australia since then until about now, has been brought down from hero to zero by all this.
Eighth: Although the attitude of fans elsewhere in the world, most notably in India, Australia and England, will be very important, the decisive factor in all this will probably now be the attitude of Pakistan’s own cricket fans. What they now demand of their cricketers will determine whether Pakistan cricket now embarks upon the painful and difficult climb back towards cricket respectability, or just gets wiped out as a serious cricket force by its inability or refusal to do this. If the “they only say we cheat because we’re better than them” school of thought triumphs in Pakistan – if, that is to say, they all bury their stupid heads in the sand – then it’s goodnight Pakistan cricket.
On the other hand, England cricket officialdom had hoped that the recent England Pakistan games would attract large numbers of Pakistani fans living in England. But these fans have been notable only for their almost total absence. At the time, commentators said it must have been the prices being charged. But what if Pakistani cricket fans in England, who will have been paying far more attention to their team than I have until very recently, had already concluded that their cricket team was bent as the proverbial nine bob note, and had decided that they simply could not bear to watch it throwing games away any more? It makes sense to me.
Ninth (this has become like that joke about two Oxford philosophers overheard in debate, but never mind): What Michael Atherton said (Times so forget about a link), as flagged up here by Natalie Solent on Monday, about the illegality of betting in large parts of Asia, and the consequent extreme nastiness of the people who run it.
I do not underestimate the difficulties involved in cleaning up Pakistan cricket, and I strongly agree with all those who are saying what a particular tragedy it will be if Amir now has his career taken from him, as will, I think, have to happen. Either Amir will now get banned for long enough to really hurt his career, or they will just prove they aren’t serious. But do not for a moment imagine that not cheating, if you are a Pakistan cricketer of talent, is a mere matter of Just Saying No. Threats are involved, not just bribes. If they can’t charm and smarm you into doing their bidding, the gangsters are all too likely to try violence, not just against you but against your family. So, it absolutely won’t be easy. It just has to be done if cricket in Pakistan cricket is to have much chance of surviving as a force in the world.
Either that, or we will all have to wait for Pakistan to stop being a totally failed nation, full of gangsters, and of religious maniacs who don’t have a clue how to stop gangsterism but only make it worse (e.g. by banning all betting) and many of whom are gangsters themselves, and hope that when that has been accomplished (I give it half a century at the absolute minimum), they still remember cricket.
