Re: Arrest Over Cricket ‘Match-Fixing’ At Lords
Yeah, please, lets not cry double standards here. I was at the pair’s first home Test in Australia after the scandal came out and the crowd was certainly condemning of the players. The media also lambasted them down here and so lets not pretend they weren’t punished. Also, I watched almost all of Hayden’s career and, as a player who played the game competitively and to the best of his ability, he absolutely has the right to make the statements he has made.
The only thing worse than the spot-fixing and match fixing going on is the cries from people about double standards. No cricketing nation has embarrassed the game to a larger extent than Pakistan (and I’m not referring to this incident in isolation).
Quite frankly, England should revoke our right to play cricket in their grounds. The ECB should distance themselves from Pakistan cricket for the good of their own game. If only cricket had the appropriate governing bodies and the correct administrative infrastructure, this issue could be dealt with fully.
It won’t happen but quite simply all Test playing nations should refuse any Pakistan cricketing tours to their countries and, as such, leave Pakistan cricket to be a pariah until it sorts itself out through the dealing of severe, harsh punishments.
It may be match-fixing or it may just be spot-fixing. However, the only way in which Pakistan cricket can redeem itself as a somewhat respected member of the cricketing fraternity is for it to deal out punishments that are harsher than the crime itself. Unfair as it may be, for the sake of cricket in Pakistan, it is imperative that the players involved are made an example of publicly.
Let us hope Pakistan cricket is given a rest from international cricket (as Malcolm Speed suggested, as much as I hate to agree with him) and are only able to return once the issue has been dealt with, not swept under the carpet or band-aided.
While this is a sad time, it is also an opportunity. If the management summons the courage to definitively end the careers of Butt, Asif, Kamran, Aamir (this will hurt the most) and anyone else who is found to be involved, then at least progress on this front has been made.
If condemnation makes taking a bribe less of a crime then these 4 have been condmened more n Pakistan than Waugh and Shane in Australia. But the talk of Australian DNA not involved in hanky panky is bull$hit