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Get rid of cricket cheats
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...f-cricket-cheats/story-e6frey50-1225911596316
Robert Craddock
From: The Daily Telegraph
August 30, 2010 12:00AM
WE have thought it for many years and now we can finally say it - the Pakistan cricket team contains a group of shameless cheats who must be thrown out of the game.
There can be no soft-peddling on this issue. The Pakistan side cannot be allowed to play another game of cricket until the corruption issue exposed by London's News of the World is fully investigated.
It's sad because the Pakistani cricketers operate on a different moral code to other nations and there are reasons why they have become so isolated and vulnerable as underpaid international gypsies who never get to play at home.
It is difficult as an Australian to understand the desperate, live-for-the-day mentality that many of the Pakistani players have in a country in which corruption and instability are a way of life.
The uncertainty of their cricketing lives is reflected by the fact that where Australia have changed coaches once in the past decade, Pakistan have done so 12 times.
But there can be no excuses.
These players have spat in the face of the game and must be harshly dealt with.
It is 10 years since Pakistan captain Salim Malik was banned for life for manipulating his team in the same sinister way that Salman Butt appears to have done in England.
The day Malik was banned, match-fixing became a bit like drug-dealing - everyone knew the consequences.
If found guilty, the players must be banned for life and the stigma of this incident will linger not simply with the men responsible but Pakistan cricket forever.
Every conspicuous no-ball, batting collapse or fielding error will now be shadowed by waves of suspicion.
For all the hundreds of questions that will be asked about the match-fixing at Lord's, there is really only one concrete fact that needs to be established for the Pakistan players to be banned.
When police raided the Swiss Cottage Hotel where the Pakistani players were staying in London on Saturday, they took away two bags belonging to players which allegedly contained a large volume of money.
If the serial numbers on the bills matched those on the ones handed out in the sting by the News Of The World reporter, the game is up.
Any logical person would accept that as proof of the scam.
Since match-fixing was first exposed in cricket 15 years ago, catching the culprits has been like trying to catch the mouse that hides behind your fridge. This time they appear to have been caught cold.
Over the past 15 years, scores of Pakistani cricketers, including the great Wasim Akram, have been accused of match-fixing. Yet most have managed to wriggle off the hook. Surely it cannot happen again.
Mind you, it would be wrong to assume the International Cricket Council's corruption team will get to the bottom of this because in terms of investigating prowess, they are more Mr Magoo than Perry Mason.
Everyone closely involved with cricket accepts that corruption has been rife. Yet in the 10 years in which the ICC corruption unit has been set up, its only scalps have been Kenyan captain Maurice Odumbe and West Indian Marlon Samuels - guppy-sized fish swimming in a school of white pointers.
In mafia terms, it is like setting out to nail Al Capone and only trapping his taxi driver for jaywalking.
Pakistan cricket is in a dreadful state and amid the anger the world must feel today, there is also sadness.
It's especially sad to think that teenage fast bowling sensation Mohammad Aamer, one of the accused, is so gifted he only needed routine help to become a rich and famous global star. But someone has guided him into the Devil's den.
Because of the strife-torn nature of the country, the team plays its games abroad and the players feel little loyalty to a homeland they rarely see.
Pakistan's captain gets about $300,000 a year from the board and the lesser lights as little as $50,000.
They can earn as much for a few preplanned no balls as they can for a year's work for their country. And they get precious little support from their board when injured.
Jason Gillespie played 71 Tests for Australia after being rehabilitated back from injury countless times. Had he been a Pakistani he would have been lucky to play 10 because he would have had to fend for himself.
But lack of support is one thing - dancing with the Devil quite another.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...f-cricket-cheats/story-e6frey50-1225911596316
Robert Craddock
From: The Daily Telegraph
August 30, 2010 12:00AM
WE have thought it for many years and now we can finally say it - the Pakistan cricket team contains a group of shameless cheats who must be thrown out of the game.
There can be no soft-peddling on this issue. The Pakistan side cannot be allowed to play another game of cricket until the corruption issue exposed by London's News of the World is fully investigated.
It's sad because the Pakistani cricketers operate on a different moral code to other nations and there are reasons why they have become so isolated and vulnerable as underpaid international gypsies who never get to play at home.
It is difficult as an Australian to understand the desperate, live-for-the-day mentality that many of the Pakistani players have in a country in which corruption and instability are a way of life.
The uncertainty of their cricketing lives is reflected by the fact that where Australia have changed coaches once in the past decade, Pakistan have done so 12 times.
But there can be no excuses.
These players have spat in the face of the game and must be harshly dealt with.
It is 10 years since Pakistan captain Salim Malik was banned for life for manipulating his team in the same sinister way that Salman Butt appears to have done in England.
The day Malik was banned, match-fixing became a bit like drug-dealing - everyone knew the consequences.
If found guilty, the players must be banned for life and the stigma of this incident will linger not simply with the men responsible but Pakistan cricket forever.
Every conspicuous no-ball, batting collapse or fielding error will now be shadowed by waves of suspicion.
For all the hundreds of questions that will be asked about the match-fixing at Lord's, there is really only one concrete fact that needs to be established for the Pakistan players to be banned.
When police raided the Swiss Cottage Hotel where the Pakistani players were staying in London on Saturday, they took away two bags belonging to players which allegedly contained a large volume of money.
If the serial numbers on the bills matched those on the ones handed out in the sting by the News Of The World reporter, the game is up.
Any logical person would accept that as proof of the scam.
Since match-fixing was first exposed in cricket 15 years ago, catching the culprits has been like trying to catch the mouse that hides behind your fridge. This time they appear to have been caught cold.
Over the past 15 years, scores of Pakistani cricketers, including the great Wasim Akram, have been accused of match-fixing. Yet most have managed to wriggle off the hook. Surely it cannot happen again.
Mind you, it would be wrong to assume the International Cricket Council's corruption team will get to the bottom of this because in terms of investigating prowess, they are more Mr Magoo than Perry Mason.
Everyone closely involved with cricket accepts that corruption has been rife. Yet in the 10 years in which the ICC corruption unit has been set up, its only scalps have been Kenyan captain Maurice Odumbe and West Indian Marlon Samuels - guppy-sized fish swimming in a school of white pointers.
In mafia terms, it is like setting out to nail Al Capone and only trapping his taxi driver for jaywalking.
Pakistan cricket is in a dreadful state and amid the anger the world must feel today, there is also sadness.
It's especially sad to think that teenage fast bowling sensation Mohammad Aamer, one of the accused, is so gifted he only needed routine help to become a rich and famous global star. But someone has guided him into the Devil's den.
Because of the strife-torn nature of the country, the team plays its games abroad and the players feel little loyalty to a homeland they rarely see.
Pakistan's captain gets about $300,000 a year from the board and the lesser lights as little as $50,000.
They can earn as much for a few preplanned no balls as they can for a year's work for their country. And they get precious little support from their board when injured.
Jason Gillespie played 71 Tests for Australia after being rehabilitated back from injury countless times. Had he been a Pakistani he would have been lucky to play 10 because he would have had to fend for himself.
But lack of support is one thing - dancing with the Devil quite another.