It is Really the Tip of the Iceberg This Time

When Henry Blaxland narrated the mitigation plea of Mohammad Amir, who was sitting in the glass chamber approximately at 90 degrees angle and 3 metres in distance from me, every word of it felt like a knife being stabbed into one’s ribcage or like the scripting of an epitaph of someone you loved. Here, it was for a cricketing career that was arguably the most promising since a certain Tendulkar faced Imran and the Ws amidst a bloodied shirt in his debut series. From the disclosing of how Amir stood in front of the mirror wearing the Pakistan shirt given to him the night before his debut to his acquiescence of any punishment to be handed out by the court, the intensity of every phrase gave way to the feeling of something that had been irretrievably lost. It was agonizing watching him lower his head, periodically recoiling; it was just heartbreaking.

And yet, all of it was just words. Or so they ended up, as in the eventual scheme of the events for any hope, lying naked in the recesses of hearts feeling for the teenager, all but died the very next day.

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For starters, let there be no doubt whatsoever that the three of them cheated. And the price tag of their assorted sins was always going to be hefty in context of the brass tacks that eventually surfaced. Whether it was entrapment (by the Fake Sheikh) as suggested by Michael Atherton or the sheer ineptitude with which Butt and Majeed administered the fix, the fact of the matter is they did get involved in this villainy and defrauded millions of cricket fans and the game itself, along with shaming their families and a nation.

There should be no denying that these players were a product of a defective system which bred corruption in its various demeanours, and had grown up deifying players who dominated the glorious 90’s with such power that could only be collated with the army of that country. Add to it, the distorted legacy of the glitched up Qayyum report and its frailty, the susceptibility of them falling prey to a well orchestrated money-spitting net was supreme.

The unfolding of their wrongdoings was beyond an iota of doubt, well for most people who had followed the case intently. The guilty plea of Amir and the subsequent 4 weeks long trial of Asif and Butt, which was akin to thieves turning against each other, left little margin for them being exonerated by the jury in the criminal case. The custodial sentences were announced and they are said to act as deterrents for the game of cricket through the Judiciary of England and Wales.

Or are they as such?

Here was a judicial system which had acquitted the likes of Bruce Grobbelaar, Matthew Le Tissier and John Higgins, in spite of possessing seemingly ample credential of corruption handed monetary fines. A justice system which had dwindled away in corruption cases related to sports in the recent past - like in the Grobbelaar’s case, the overturning of the initial libel jury’s verdict – would always force this question to be ascertained: “Do you really have a concrete belief in the system?”

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Then there is the curious case of Anti Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU). The Anti-Corruption Unit of the body had operating expenses for 2010 of 877, 000 USD and yet was unable to find a single maligned event in the game over the year when there's been smoke all over. From fearing about rogue elements in the game a few years back to being called a ‘toothless tiger’, it has yet to come up with a single implicative exposure.

Fair enough that ACSU is not a law enforcing body, but if sting operations such as these have to be effected by newspapers – in this case by one that no longer exists - where do we find the authority for such a body? How do we stop seeing it as an organization that alienates itself from methodologies that should be applied to investigate the corruption in the game, and have it not make a joke of its own integrity by reopening already run alleged match-rigging cases? Or starts taking seriously the recommendations from the likes of protagonists such as Rashid Latif, and just not be handing out cushy jobs for former policemen with zilch authority.

During the proceedings, Ravi Sawani amazed everyone when he revealed he did not even know what ‘brackets’ are, even on the Unit claiming it has had a fairly extensive reach in the betting world. It’s the same apathy, which enables Lord Condon to advise enforcing bans on countries involved in cricket corruption. If that were to be the case, then we might end up with Test nations that can be counted on fingers in one hand, for it simply is not a country-specific issue (Mervyn Westfield should agree).

It has been reported that the employment of cricket-savvy personnel has been recommended in the Unit, pretty much annulling the mindset of having police and military officers run its affairs meticulously. Along with the scrutinizing of cricketers with non-detailed monetary wealth, this sounds as a form of overhauling of ACSU. How much do these steps, once executed, cater to the exposure of corruption in the game is to be seen.

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Pete Rose, in the 80s, bet thousands of dollars on the game which made him world famous. He was banished from baseball, but was not sent behind bars. There are other analogous examples of dismissed careers of rogue men in various sports over the years. In fact, this has been the first instance in the last 50 years when sportsmen have been sent to prison. For this specific scandal, rightfully christened as the grandest of its kind in cricketing history, those who are part of the lynch mob would always profess that justice was served and some of the antagonists may even want severer sentences, disregarding the fact that the already handed out ICC bans have potentially sealed their playing careers.

These prison sentences could be seen as deterrents only if uniformity in legislating legal cricket betting is adopted and jurisdictions which were utilized for trying the trio in court are replicated in other playing countries. Australia, for one, desires to make fixing illegal by next year through specialized legislation, which, undoubtedly, would have to be seen as a major step.

Perhaps the argument here intersperses more between condemning a justice system that doesn’t seem to function on level playing field and being dismayed over an organization whose productivity begs answers with not much to show on paper, advocating the view of custodial sentences in this case being seen as a mopping up affair rather than significant deterrents.

Even though our collective moral compasses may never be aligned to come to a consensus on whether putting the three players behind bars is impediment enough, but few people would disapprove the frightening scenario in which a teenager like Amir would have found himself in facing the underworld threats and then to come clean. If my visits to the Southwark Crown Court have forced any realization, it is that the vagaries of on-field betraying acts have less to do with the criminal courts and are more concerned with the actual fabric of the game, the principles it stands for and the authorities that are meant to be providing it the due protection.

"Tip of the iceberg" - you said it when Hansie did it, when Azhar was 'nailed' and now you have labelled this the same. “It’s not Cricket”, Justice Cooke remarked in the opening sentence of the verdicts, which I’m pretty sure we have heard before in the previous years.

Don’t let these clichés fool you time and again, dare I say.

- This post was first published at The Sight Screen.

A Gentleman's Game? No more!

Cricket is not a gentleman's game anymore. Though this statement has been vindicated in the past, it is currently being augmented in an explosive manner in the form of the ongoing fiasco concerning Pakistani wicket keeper, Zulqarnain Haider. Just when Pakistan cricket and its fans could ill-afford another trauma in this cursed year of 2010, here came the bewildering news of Zulqarnain Haider going missing just hours before the final match of a classic ODI series against South Africa which Pakistan eventually lost.

Anyone who follows and comprehends cricket, should know by the history and dynamics of it that it is just not a mere sport. It is a massive world encompassing the game contested in the ground, entertainment and money. Sadly, the last one is counted as the pivotal factor whenever this beautiful sport is plagued with controversies and scandals, and thus plays a pivotal role in developing the above stated perception. From one end of the cricketing world to another, financial gains and corruption have resulted in hijacking the true essence and spirit which this sport embodies and ultimately has put it to shame.

Betting is a menace which is not alien to cricket. It has been present probably since its inception, yet betting and illegal money have always been the hobby for the wronger rather than the men in flannels until the last few decades. Since the 1990s, cricket has seen numerous scandals of monetary corruption and match fixing involving various men representing their countries, which has jeopardized its image and forced a view that the corruption is inseparable from the game and according to Paul Condon, cannot be uprooted.

From the infamous controversy of Shane Warne and Mark Waugh being involved with bookmakers to the monstrous revelations of Hansie Cronje in 2000, cricket corruption has shown its colors even in the most professionally competent cricket boards of the world.












The year 2000 also saw the crackdown on match fixing by Indian cricket and Pakistan's Justice Qayyum inquiry, both of which left more than 1 billion cricket worshiping subcontinent people stunned.



Only in this decade, there have surfaced numerous damning scandals and incidents which have proved that the cancerous betting and monetary corruption have penetrated well and truly in cricket world. The recent IPL mess in which its chief administrator, Lalit Modi was suspended amid corruption claims is a grave consequence of monetary mismanagement in the game.

Till today, the deaths of the disgraced former South African captain, Hansie Cronje, and former Pakistan coach, Bob Woolmer, remain a mystery and are indicated by some to be murdered by mafia betting syndicates, who have thoroughly maligned the once-called gentleman game.


Earlier in the year, when the spot fixing controversy concerning 3 world class Pakistani players surfaced, Geoff Lawson, who had been the coach of Pakistan team, provided an insight to the world about the virus that cricket is subjected to in the form of the mafia that endangered the lives of people connected with the game. He revealed that during his term as the coach of the team, one of the selectors of Pakistan team had been threatened of his daughter being kidnapped if a specific player was not selected for a match. To further corroborate the threat possessed by the betting mafia, a recent incident involving English player, Usman Afzaal showed how dangerous these syndicates can be.

The latest episode of Zulqarnain Haider claiming to be given death threats seems to be the latest in this context.
A devoted and fighting cricketer who had a permanent place in the team till he left for UK is now so mentally traumatized that he has put his career on line, retired and is said to be seeking asylum in England. What in the world forced him into such a mental state and to take such life defining actions? There have already been many opinions and commentaries done, varying from it being an attention seeking stunt to tarnishing the image of the country. Whatever be anyone's take on it, he needs to be understood and the issue needs to be addressed in full length. Zulqarnain has already spoken out a bit on the match fixing elements he has dealt with in his career which have already caused a stir, yet his whistle blowing related to the death threats should be the one making heads roll, that is if he comes out with any.

Where all this will end up, nobody knows for now, but there is a definite exigency for the administrators of the game to tighten the screws. Cricketers, of all, need to be provided maximum security. The onus is on the ICC who has often been accused of lacking professionalism in such scenarios, even though ACSU has been its major tool to check on the prevalent betting and match fixing in the game. Moreover, cricket boards need to step up and apart from protecting their own players from these menaces, need to support ICC. Having said that, no matter how concrete and credible steps are adopted, one thing is indisputable- today's gentleman's game is a far cry from the one played by W.G. Grace and his men. Sigh.

- This piece of mine was also published here in the Pakistan English daily, Express Tribune.