Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

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Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

Once again the game has been dragged into disrepute because of allegations surrounding players fixing elements of games. Details are sketchy at the moment but it seems to involve Pakistan players taking money to bowl no-balls. There is no evidence of results being fixed, which is a silver lining of sorts.

Matters are made worse as a number of no-balls were bowled which seemed to correspond to when they were meant to be bowled.

More here - BBC News - Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

This is absolutely massive and disgraceful for the game. All these people should be banned for life by the ICC, knowing that the PCB are not competent enough to take such a bold decision.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

If this is true, it would appear that a number of bad apples are currently in the Pakistan side. Remember there are or were allegations against Kaneria at the start of the season.

As you say, if proven then the ICC need to come down hard on those found to be involved.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

This is gonna hit cricket very hard by the looks of it, from what i have read there are ALOT of people involved.

When they said about no balls the massive one involving a certain bowler came to mind.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

For the moment, I will be a fence sitter. My despise for such lack of principle and integrity is matched by my distrust and contempt of the news/media industry. If this turns out to be substantiated I agree with previous comments, make the penalties severe for all those involved.

It would appear "News Of The World" have a somewhat checkered history in tabloid journalism including sports related stories that have landed them in court. Mas could this be a valid point in this case or am I off with the fairies?
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

i'd also question the last test where Cook brought up his hundred with Asif hurling the ball over the keeper's head.

another exotic bet on that one no doubt.

expect the ICC to do very little or nothing on this. the PCB will do more.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

onemoreover;407081 said:
For the moment, I will be a fence sitter. My despise for such lack of principle and integrity is matched by my distrust and contempt of the news/media industry. If this turns out to be substantiated I agree with previous comments, make the penalties severe for all those involved.

It would appear "News Of The World" have a somewhat checkered history in tabloid journalism including sports related stories that have landed them in court. Mas could this be a valid point in this case or am I off with the fairies?
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Well, the fact that Scotland Yard have gotten involved shows it's quite serious...

Lord's Test at centre of fixing allegations | Cricket News | England v Pakistan 2010 | Cricinfo.com
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

again shows up our idiotic CA for burying their heads in the sand after Sydney and believing their processes and ticked boxes were making the Aussie cricket team "something special"
:mad:
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

onemoreover;407081 said:
It would appear "News Of The World" have a somewhat checkered history in tabloid journalism including sports related stories that have landed them in court. Mas could this be a valid point in this case or am I off with the fairies?
Click to expand...

You have a point regarding the News of the World, which is why I went with the BBC as they tend to have more journalistic integrity. I would advise caution on the matter but as others have pointed out, if Scotland Yard are involved then at the very least there is smoke, which often means a fire is not too far away.

Judging by the stuff out there, what is clear is that someone did take money with the intention of fixing elements of the match. They talked the talk and in claiming they had members of the Pakistani team on board means it has to be taken very seriously. The most damning aspect is that at the overs specified (I believe even to the ball) no-balls occurred. If you look at the replays the bowlers are not overstepping by a small amount but by 4-6 inches and they do look deliberate.

As someone else pointed out, the incident where Cook got a ton could well have been contrived - but unless irregular betting patterns show up I would say that for the moment it was 'clean' and a genuine mistake.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

Roy00;407082 said:
i'd also question the last test where Trott (i think it was) brought up his hundred with Asif hurling the ball over the keeper's head.

another exotic bet on that one no doubt.

expect the ICC to do very little or nothing on this. the PCB will do more.
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Which could go either of two ways. The first would be they punish the offenders severely, the second is that they do absolutely nothing.

The PCB are very fickle when it comes to internal affairs, they came down hard on Shoaib Akhtar over drug allegations only to completely reverse the decision later on. Mohammad Asif got off basically scott-free despite being caught with illicit drugs in Dubai. On the other hand, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik and Younis Khan were left out in the cold after Pakistan's tour of Australia which was a massive overreaction.

There's no way of telling what will happen here. Could go either way in my opinion. I do agree though that the offenders need to be punished and that the punishment needs to be severe. This type of thing in cricket needs to be stamped out and those involved need to be made an example of to deter those who think that doing this sort of thing is a good idea. However I wouldn't be surprised if not much came of the situation.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

Some interesting things I found on a Pakistani cricket forum (namely, pakpassion.net).

- Afridi quit test cricket because he supposedly 'knew' about all this, and didn't want to have anything to do with it. In fact, the fixer called Afridi a "fu**er who was fu**ing it up for the others" (The Asia Cup match against SL was fixed, Afridi scored a 100, the others 'gave' their wickets away) ; Also interesting to note that Afridi claims he had informed the PCB about the match-fixing scandals, who decided to just ignore the issue.

- Younus Khan was eased out of the international team for the same reason

- The reason neither of these players could come out in the open to say it was because their lives and families would've been at risk.

- Asif pulled Aamir into all this according to his ex-fiancee (also a celebrity of some kind in Pakistan apparently), she came on a tv show recently to make several claims such as: Asif did indeed take drugs in the past, Asif had told her that he had taken Aamir aside and told him "I have as many cases as your age on me, but I'm still making a lot of money, there's no risk in this" (match-fixing), these set of players had already fixed matches for the entire 2010 season (they would lose all the test series - they actually tried to win the second match against Australia only so that Salman Butt would remain in charge for the remainder of the season)

- These players had already fixed a loss in 2 of the ODI matches in the series against England (a move to undermine Afridi as captain and get Butt in as captain for ODIs and T20s as well)

Some of these points, although interesting, do sound fishy to me. Especially the one with Asif and his ex-fiancee, sounds more like revenge than anything else. xD

However, I thought I'd share this here.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

king_of_slaves;407131 said:
Some interesting things I found on a Pakistani cricket forum (namely, pakpassion.net).

- Afridi quit test cricket because he supposedly 'knew' about all this, and didn't want to have anything to do with it. In fact, the fixer called Afridi a "fu**er who was fu**ing it up for the others" (The Asia Cup match against SL was fixed, Afridi scored a 100, the others 'gave' their wickets away) ; Also interesting to note that Afridi claims he had informed the PCB about the match-fixing scandals, who decided to just ignore the issue.

- Younus Khan was eased out of the international team for the same reason

- The reason neither of these players could come out in the open to say it was because their lives and families would've been at risk.

- Asif pulled Aamir into all this according to his ex-fiancee (also a celebrity of some kind in Pakistan apparently), she came on a tv show recently to make several claims such as: Asif did indeed take drugs in the past, Asif had told her that he had taken Aamir aside and told him "I have as many cases as your age on me, but I'm still making a lot of money, there's no risk in this" (match-fixing), these set of players had already fixed matches for the entire 2010 season (they would lose all the test series - they actually tried to win the second match against Australia only so that Salman Butt would remain in charge for the remainder of the season)

- These players had already fixed a loss in 2 of the ODI matches in the series against England (a move to undermine Afridi as captain and get Butt in as captain for ODIs and T20s as well)

Some of these points, although interesting, do sound fishy to me. Especially the one with Asif and his ex-fiancee, sounds more like revenge than anything else. xD

However, I thought I'd share this here.
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i'd like to believe the 2 Redback Pak players are innocent :cool:
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

If a lot of this isn't sensationalism and conspiracy and is true, it gets me wondering. If Pakistan weren't under-performing in at least one - perhaps many more - match/es, then how strong a team are then when they aren't doing such?

At the moment I'm more than willing to just bury my head in some sand, then a little while later look up and see if it's still happening. I hope Pakistan is the only team involved in this.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

Boris;407169 said:
If a lot of this isn't sensationalism and conspiracy and is true, it gets me wondering. If Pakistan weren't under-performing in at least one - perhaps many more - match/es, then how strong a team are then when they aren't doing such?

At the moment I'm more than willing to just bury my head in some sand, then a little while later look up and see if it's still happening. I hope Pakistan is the only team involved in this.
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i somehow doubt it though
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

This is crazy, I just read a really interesting article from an aussie site about this and he makes some great points about 'why Pakistan'

But why is it Pakistan? They seemed to have been involved recently in more than a fair share of these fixing controversies. There are a few possible reasons. Pakistan has suffered the most due to security situation with no teams willing to travel there. This has led to a drastic reduction in opportunities for the players to make money. Due to the India-Pakistan political situation, their players were not in the IPL either which would have been a huge windfall. Pakistan's Test cricketers are paid anywhere from £750 to £1,900 a month, in contrast to England stars who are on at least £10,000 a month. Or perhaps, the muscle of the mafia could be more freely exerted in Pakistan? So impressionable youngsters, while wanting to represent their country, are cajoled and perhaps coerced, in to doing some "harmless" things like bowling a no ball at a pre-determined situation to pocket a cool 10 Grand, more than 10 times the fees they gets for playing an entire month. The temptation especially for a teenager that comes from a poor background and the need to take care of his family could be a little too much to resist.
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Is it that bad over there, sad, impact for young up and coming players not given the opportunity in IPl would cause some issues for one!
 
An article on the culture of Pakistani cricket

Enough is enough… Time to ban Pakistan! There's no such thing as truth, just human opinion.

Share some feedback.
 
Re: Arrest over Pakistan-England cricket 'betting scam'

the ICC cannot afford to ban Pakistan and wont in any case.

life bans for implicated players however should be imposed, but i doubt we'll see that either.
 
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