The Pakistan cricketers...

[max_tranmere]

The fury over the four allegedly corrupt players in the Pakistan team has reached such fever pitch that there are calls, in some quarters, for them to be charged with High Treason in Pakistan. This was mentioned on the news early this morning. Views from other people, interviewed in the streets of Pakistan, have ranged from "ban them for life" to "they and the entire Board should be shot!".

Does anyone have any theories as to how Pakistan cricket, or cricket in general, can ever recover from this? Many people, from now onwards, will think that the game they are watching could have been fixed. One idea I have to cut down on this sort of thing is to make it illegal for anyone associated with sport to take a bribe. It is clearly against the rules to accept one, but probably not against the rules to offer one.

Bringing in that rule, and making it a Capital offence where you are tried in Court, will reduce the number of people wanting to offer bribes. After the "cash in brown envelopes" scandal of the early-1990's, where the Tory MP Neil Hamilton was alledged to have taken money to ask questions in the UK Parliament, they made it illegal to OFFER bribes - not only just take them. This will clear up sport if done here also.

What do people think?

[Ned]

At the very least they should take it on themselves to ban any guilty spot fixers or match fixers for life, without leaving the punishment up to the national board.

I'd like to see Pakistan banned from Test cricket for five years anyway. Their country is not safe to take touring teams, their board is a shambles, some of their players have been banned for life for various offences and have the bans reduced or overturned on a whim it seems, and I think a ban would give a new cricket board time to clean the game up. If they can.

The problem with this, of course, is you may see a split in world cricket if India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh kick up a fuss. But frankly, who needs them anyway? Test cricket has only really meaningful series for England and that's the Ashes.

[RoddersUK]

Spot on Ned.
I doubt India will kick up a fuss if Pakistan is banned for 5, 10 or 20 years. They detest each other. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh just aint good enough yet and all they are is a practice for our and other national sides.
The one and only Ian Botham said years ago that Pakistran practised cheating in cricket and what a fucking furore he caused. He was fucking spot on though.

[max_tranmere]

Something else I noticed was how the Pakistan cricket team travel by coach and stay at a Holiday Inn down in Somerset. As top cricketers on the sub-continent are treated like film stars I thought it would have been limosines, or at the very least a fleet of black Range Rovers, that would whizz them to the London City Airport and a private plane would fly them to Somerset. Instead they cruise the motorways of England in their coach like a school boy team would.

[Bob Singleton]

Given the match-fixing (and match fixing it is... if someone can deliberately bowl a no-ball for betting purposes, they can also miss simple catches... and how many have Pakistan dropped in this series and the two previous series against Australia?) is done by shady underworld gangs and illegal betting syndicates, I find it laughable that some people here have suggested "regulating" and taxing betting! Go down to Ladbrooks and ask to place a bet on a bowler bowling a no-ball first ball of the third over and they'll not only refuse to take the bet, they would inform the Gambling Board someone had tried to do so. Legal gambling is pretty well regulated wherever you go in the world. What can't be easily regulated is illegal gambling and the criminal syndicates who use threats and coercion, as well as bribes, to get players to do things they shouldn't.

As for paying cricketers more... Hanse Cronje was one of the richest sportsmen in South Africa thanks to numerous endorsements, but that didn't stop him from taking money from crooked gambling syndicates to rig games.

The sad fact is that cricket is ideally suited to crooked spot betting as bowling a deliberate no ball at a particular given moment is the easiest thing to do without it adversely affecting the result of the whole match or indeed needing the collusion of any of the other 21 players from either side.

Max, I think you'll find that many international sporting teams use luxury coaches to travel around our small island when on tour.

[Trumpton]

The recent series between England and Pakistan, and indeed the series earlier in the year involving Australia and Pakistan, has been shrouded by the Pakistani players dropping easy catches. Why has this happened? Is it simply that their fielding is appalling, or, is it due to something far more sinister?

It's been the case that cricket in Pakistan has been immersed in the shadow of match-fixing for decades. Many dodgy incidents go unreported.

Pakistan should be removed from test cricket for a long period of time - but this won't occur as it would lead to a split in the international game.

[Ron T. Storm]

Cunts. Ruined it.