The last edition of the cricket sadist’s quarterly had a piece on spot fixing written by me. It’s now tragically out of date, but I think it’s worth a read.
About a year ago a cricketer contacted me to talk about fixing in cricket. He was positive it was happening again, at ICL, IPL and International level. He even specified games that he and others thought it had happened in. I checked into these games and came up with other reasons why things happened the way they did.
The player was very upset, but he didn’t see how coming forward would help out.
In the next few weeks I was contacted by other cricketers and officials who gave me similar stories. Some were major names in international cricket, and some lesser known. All of them hoped I could do something, but like them I could do little. They had no evidence, just strong hunches, none of them would speak publicly about this, and all I could do was write on my site in the vaguest possible terms.
Since then spot fixing has come to the attention of the mainstream media and seems as close to taking over cricket as it was at the end of the 90s.
Essex players have been arrested by police. Shakib Al Hasan has come out saying people have offered him money before. Lalit Modi accused Chris Cairns of being involved in fixing in the ICL. Pakistani government officials line up waiting to accuse Pakistan of fixing anytime they lose. And there were reports of 27 players in the IPL being under scrutiny (which was later refuted).
The players involved are from around the globe; this isn’t some dirty little Subbie problem. The betting might be based in India, but as we learnt in the late 90s, the players involved are from everywhere.
During the late 90s you could throw a stone in International cricket and hit someone who was doing something that was less than ethical with bookies. The majority of the players involved got off scot-free, but cynical fans still believe that almost everyone was involved. I once heard Peter Roebuck say that he put Sanath Jayasuriya on a pedestal, and one reason was that he was 100% sure he didn’t interact with bookies unethically, and there were few other players of that generation of whom he thought the same. There is no way to know if that is true now, but fixing in cricket is here. If the spirit of cricket actually existed (and wasn’t some construct by a gin sipping crusty old man) fixing games would surely not be allowed.
Few sports in history have been devised to allow betting on them more than cricket. Some scholars have stated that cricket was formed the way it was, because of the betting on the early matches. Allowing people to bet on each ball, over, wicket, boundary, wide, or batsmen is certainly going to get the attention of bookies. The more ways someone can bet on a sport, the more they are likely to.
The player who was supposed to keep wicket for England in the first ever test match, Ted Pooley, was instead in jail in New Zealand. Apparently Pooley had bet on the individual scores of each batsmen: he said they would all score ducks and would claim £1 for each duck. Depending on reports there were between 8 and 11 ducks (the team they were playing had 22 players), and Pooley had been umpire. When the local businessman who was supposed to pay out didn’t, Pooley beat him up, which is why he was in jail. This was in 1877.
That was a fairly obvious case of something, either match fixing, bad umpiring, or a bad bet by the local businessman. Now it is not so easy to spot. Unless phone calls, tax records, or witnesses come forward, how can you stop a bowler in a largely meaningless televised T20 game, like in the IPL, Big Bang or in English County Cricket, ensuring his over goes for more than ten. Or for a batsman to ensure that the 33rd over is a maiden in a one-day match.
It is almost impossible; there are so many ways a cricketer to spot-fix a game, so few ways we can detect it, and a truckload of largely unimportant games for the players to fix in.
Some people have talked about education; making sure the players know that taking money or even just talking to bookies can lead to loads of shit. But if cricket has showed us anything it is that even someone with the education of L Ron Stanford (sure he only went to College in Waco, Texas, but he still went there) can be moved by money over honour.
When talking to one of my moles, I was told about ICL games that were so dodgy that both teams were trying to lose key moments at the same time. Some players reported that the games were so farcical, it was like they were scripted. If that were true, it meant that in one game of cricket, two loads of dodgy men had put money on poor performances for either side. Think of the level of corruption required in the game for that to happen.
This year in England’s domestic T20 event they are bringing in the ICC’s anti-match fixing unit to watch the games much more closely. This was probably brought about by the arrest of Mervyn Westfield and Danish Kaneria after suspected match fixing in an Essex Pro40 game last year. People who have seen Westfield bowl before are at a loss for words at the thought of him getting paid by bookies to bowl expensive overs in limited overs cricket, as they thought that is what Essex did.
I wouldn’t want to be the person in charge of finding spot fixing. Look at any Pakistani cricket game. Saeed Ajmal dropped three catches in one T20 match, Kamran Akmal refused to glove a ball cleanly against Australia, Mohammad Yousuf captained like it was his first game of cricket in the same game, Shahifd Afridi’s whole batting career must raise red flags and that is just the really blatantly obvious ones. It could be that all of these are match fixing, or that none are. How the fuck could we know?
Think about this scenario. An aging seamer is on his way out of international cricket, he is playing a one day international, and someone offers him 10,000 clams to bowl two wides in his 3rd over. He will make more with those two wides than he will playing close to ten ODIs. His international career is virtually over, he is cashing in, and all he has to do is remember to bowl two wides in his third over.
Do you think you could spot the difference between a bowler bowling two wides in an over on purpose or by accident?
Therein lies the problem. Unless the bookies are really poor with their choices of who they go after, or with the phone and money details, how would we know? We can’t rely on players as they are only human, some less so, the ICC can’t do much right, chances are they won’t make this their one victory and individual boards are likely to protect players involved as Australia has already done in the past. I’m not sure where that leaves us.
As fans we can do little more than hope more players forget to match fix like Herschelle Gibbs did, or the players and bookies involved make mistakes like they did with the newly born again sainted Hansie. Only a proper international scandal will make the bookies crawl back into their gutters for a while.
The last sentence was truly prophetic. Sehwagology worship seems to be rubbing on you the right way.
Seriously, everyone who knew their cricket would have deduced foul play in at least two instances the past couple of years. ICL and IPL with thir first class nature and zero accountability has made these cretins come out in the open again. Time to do to these leagues what was done to Sharjah, the original den of fixers.
“Only a proper international scandal will make the bookies crawl back into their gutters for a while.”
oh dear.
Spot fixing, a few no balls and wides..how will these change the outcome of a match? i dont think spot fixing is a big deal. cricket is very hard to fix
Weather it was hansie cronje, Gibbs, Shane Warne, Markwaugh, saleem malik, Azheruddin, Asif, Amir, Kamran Salman butt or IJAZ BUTT………all should be made an example for the world.
They played with the emotions of hundred of thousands of crazy die hard fans. They spoiled one of they very few things we were proud of. Efforts are afoot in Pakistan to trace all assests of those players who are alledgely involved in spot and match fixing. All assests should be forzen. They should be jailed according to the law.
Team Management is definitely involved……why is zulqarnain Haider being sent to pakistan with a minor injury……he wasnt even given pakistan cap for test match. although the alledged Wahab Riaz got it in style. he bowled too many and big no balls too.
umar gul stayed with the team although injured from sometime. Kamran was accomodated at the expense of Haider. Y is younis being ignored. Y shahid afridi quit?
IJAZ butt is brother in law of defence minister of pakistan and thats his only credential.
.
Would this man fudge a cricket match?
Ben, thank you, if it wasn’t for you I’d never know this existed.
My work here is done.
*Taps off into the web*
One thing that really ticks me off is: now that its a front page story, people come out of the woodwork telling about things they saw 6 months before or 18 months before. Is in the ACSU there to take in these worries and concerns and hunches, and investigate it?
Objectively speaking, If Aamer is found guilty, should be made an example of for any future offenders but the fact that he is only 18 makes me waffle. I suppose everyone makes mistakes and deserve an opportunity to redeem themselves.. I can understand a 10 yer veteran getting a life ban, but a kid still in his first yr of international cricket *gulp* that”s too harsh, if it were to happen.
PCB and other boards need to get their act together, provide proper guidance and help to these teenage superstars. But that’s too much to ask of any entity run by idiots like Ejaz Butt.
Check out my article: Cancer of Doubt: http://www.thebigtip.com.au/cricket/cancer-doubt-spot-fixing-controversy
Cheers
“We must remember that we are judging these guys by the standards of our own country, when their situations are vastly different,” Lawson told The Age in Melbourne. “The first time I met Mohammad Amir was when he was 16, coming to an Under-19s camp. He comes from a small village near the Swat valley and was delayed by three hours because the Taliban had closed the highway. That doesn’t happen in this country.”
“One thing that struck me about Amir was his constant smile, his zest for the game,” he said. “That has not changed. I will never condone any form of fixing, but we should consider that a cricketer might not be thinking of personal gain but of getting money to buy a generator for his village because they don’t have electricity.
http://www.cricinfo.com/england-v-pakistan-2010/content/current/story/475154.html
Its so revealing how even these ignorant white fucks (pardon the repeated redundancy) begin to talk sense once they actually leave their mono-cultured homes and live elsewhere – be it Lawson, or Steve Waugh, or Wright, or Kirsten, … . But some trash just never get it, like Ponting or Haydn, or the vast uncouth majority.
Of course Ponting and Hussey are feeling really fucked over because their glorious hour at Sydney has been stolen – I’m really warming to these bookies – this is so beautiful, first Broad, then the Aussies – especially the one-dimensional Aussies.
Hey, maybe Ponting the master tactician can now try insinuating that the Cal 2001 test was also fixed.
Newsflash: Closet racist makes terrible post on the internet, more at six.
Having grown up with cricket, among other sports, I have always found it remarkably uninteresting. When I was alive, there were no one-day matches, and the five days required to watch a first-class match more or less limited it appeal to the upper crust, and to the countless retired gentlemen I saw at Lords taking advantage of the sport’s soporific properties.
Then, as I understand it from afar (the U.S.), Black chappies livened things up by enjoying themselves while playing cricket, which included beating England, complete with noisy celebrations which the English found most unbecoming. Soon, these non-whites had encouraged their own kind to infiltrate the stands, to mingle with real spectators until, before we knew it, there were thousands of the buggers and they kept coming back. They also made a great deal more noise that we White chaps considered acceptable — yelping, whooping, chanting! Good Lord! This is not a football match! This is Lords Cricket Ground!
Over time, the outside world learned, vaguely, that cricket was not as boring as it used to be, that it’s quicker, shorter, and more like a sporting event. But the realization soon sunk in that it was still cricket. Better than baseball, that’s for sure. But so is Rounders. What it needed, what it had always needed, was some spicing up. Strip cricket might have done the trick, but spot-fixing did.
From here on, I am being serious — As I understand it (and it may be that I don’t know cricket well enough to understand it), the kind of bets involved here, when they are not fixed, involve more luck than judgment. They are like betting on whether the number of yellow cards issued in a football match will be odd or even, are they not? They are more roulette than blackjack, if you will. In football, betting on the result, or the winning margin, involves an element of skill or judgment, whereas betting odd/even on yellow cards is just like betting odd/even in roulette.
In cricket, too, there are bets which involve judgment. But are bets on the fact and timing of no-balls just like odd/even in roulette (assuming no fixing)? Or am I missing something? Is there judgment involved?
If, as I assume, these no-balls bets are the equivalent of pulling a number out of a hat, then why would any serious gambler ever bet on them UNLESS they were fixed? And why do bookies lay odds on such arcane details when the matches in question are obscure and difficult to vet? The urge to maximize income must be tempered by the risk of loss inherent in the fixing.
You are new to this site, aren’t you, boy?
No, not really. Just not someone who feels the need to compulsively comment on every post, but nice try pal!
Watson was invited for drinks by the bookmaker, who the allrounder initially thought was a fan. “I didn’t think too much more of it until I found out a bit more information and that he was actually one of the illegal bookmakers,” Watson said in Sydney. “It was just a little bit different to what normal fans are.”
How does this Putz define his normal fans? He didn’t verbally abuse him? Didn’t toss turds at him?
Shane Watson is the new Peter Pan
All that the fan wanted was for watto to bowl at the stumps. Paki players will do the rest.
“we should consider that a cricketer might not be thinking of personal gain but of getting money to buy a generator for his village because they don’t have electricity.”
Really? Really? You actually think that’s credible? Hahahahaha! A white fuck who makes this statement is as ignorant and condescending as any racist white fuck. As is the white/brown/pink/black/yellow fuck who says, “XYZ makes four times as much as Mohd Aamir in the IPL, think about that. It’s the disbalance in player fees in world cricket that’s the cause” or words to that effect.
Firstly, none of these players are in penury — not those who’ve been playing for their country for a year or two anyway. Secondly, the asshole who makes all that money in the IPL is equally likely to spot-fix, because it precisely isn’t about “buying generators for villages”. Thirdly, there’s a mediocre twat in another company who makes twice my pay for the same job, and I’m ten times better at it than he is. Hurrah, I can go pick someone’s pocket now!
Keltic, I guess that’s the last we’ll be hearing from you for a while then … .
Good one Poopsie. Our dear What-ho was so shocked by the goings ons at the Oval – sure! Isnt there a frikkin ACU education program in place for dimwits like him?
And the entire Aussie team din’t suspect a thing about Sydney, till day-before, in spite of Congdon and gang investigating the match. Hussey is still trying to kid himself that all those dropped catches were genuine screw-ups. Of course they could have been, but the frikkin innocence of these Aussie dickheads. i guess there is a DNA difference after all, they possess a gene for self-delusion that others do not.
Shaitaan, sure Lawson could come across as a condescending white prick (but in this particular case i dont see it that way), and i have no time for Waugh’s charity personally, but its a bloody improvement on what they were. And any whitey who speaks like Lawson has my support – its an order of magnitude improvement to their binary mindset.
But particularly on Amir, since everyone is creaming about his talent (as if thats what makes his case more poignant – stupid fucks) , would you as an 18 yr old from a village torn asunder by the brave US war-lord and suddenly thrust into the lime-light have the balls to stand up to the captain and Asif and whoever else is calling the shots? The entire team is tainted, some bowl badly, some throw away their wickets, etc, but many are coerced and threatened, and some do it willingly.
(Read Ata-ur-Rehman’s testimony on how Akram forced him to bowl badly, how he was threatened, and how he finally gave up and came clean, only to receive a life-ban, while Akram continues to rake it in till today.. What about Basit Ali, that extremely talented Miandad in the making – hes the only guy who probably walked away, but he never played again.)
IPL jeez, you actually stupid enough to follow that crap, Its been created for betting and fixing, its the arsehole who doesn’t do it who is against the spirit of the game – to say nothing about the inherent lack of aesthetics of a t20 game. You think Ambani and Mallya and the other pricks are into it for the love and respect of the game!
Shane Watson said that “May be it is their culture. I don’t know how deep it runs”! What an arrogant punk! Not sure what was in Mark Waugh’s and Shane Warne’s culture when they accepted money for pitch conditions.
It doesn’t make what the Pakistan team members did right. However, bringing the culture unnecessarily to this discussion only sounds racist.
Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee are not Australians. Or they belong to different culture from Shane Watson. Or Headingley 1981 did not happen – take your pick!
Cheers,
Jogesh, my point is that ignorance is ignorance. If Lawson actually believes that Mohd Aamir or ANY Pakistani player or ANY player takes money to improve the lot of his ‘village’, he’s… stupid. I have a problem with stupidity, which transcends skin colour.
As for the rest, the captain is the boy Salman Butt, not Wasim Akram or Imran Khan or even Shahid Afridi. But okay, conceded, Aamir may be afraid of the fixer who is the sports agent to half the team after all. So might Salman Butt for that matter.
And for this…
“IPL jeez, you actually stupid enough to follow that crap, Its been created for betting and fixing, its the arsehole who doesn’t do it who is against the spirit of the game – to say nothing about the inherent lack of aesthetics of a t20 game. You think Ambani and Mallya and the other pricks are into it for the love and respect of the game!”
…No, ‘stupid’, I merely made a point about comparitive pay scales not being a valid excuse for a crime, I never anything about following the IPL or the IPL being clean or Lalit . Look before you rant.
PS: Chandraji, far be it for me to defend Watto the Twatto, but he may simply have meant ‘team culture’. When you have a ‘team culture’ that believes in fixing; it becomes, as Jogesh points out, difficult to say no even if your conscience tells you to. Watson could call his team manager, who could Aamir call?
@Shaitaan, Fair point. I admit that I failed to think that way. May be I need to get over my personal bias against Australians :-).
Shaitaan, agreed, IPL has nothing to do it. But one must never pass a chance to rant about the IPL!
In fact Imran’s interview on indian tv yesterday put all things in perspective quite well.
And What-ho made a good point today – he blames the ICC for the mess. He’s the first cricketer with the balls to say it.