Pakistan at the Centre of Match Fixing Allegations: Again!

It was too good to be true. The Champions Trophy had been run and won in an efficient and no-fuss manner and it finally seemed like the International Cricket Council had figured out how to do something right.

There were even good news stories dominating headlines, like the sportsmanship shown by Daniel Vettori to the thoroughly undeserving Paul Collingwood and similarly with Andrew Strauss doing the right thing by Angelo Mathews. But it couldn’t last and now the tournament has been tarnished by claims of match fixing.

In a game dominated by mind-boggling sums of money and the focus of gambling on a global scale, it is perhaps surprising that these allegations don’t come up more often. Sadly however, when issues of this nature arise, the focus invariably turns to Pakistan.

To suggest that Pakistan’s cricket side is enigmatic is to do them an injustice. On their day, they are capable of exquisite cricket, full of flair and excitement. On their off-days, however, they are woeful, seemingly incapable of the simplest acts and besieged by bickering and disunity and they are never too far away from the latest controversy.

Not that Pakistan is the only side to have been touched by match fixing, but it seems that, along with Indian bookmakers, they have been prominent in most of the scandals to have hit.

We should not forget that Mohammed Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia, Hansie Cronje and others have also been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, but it is Pakistan that has turned corruption and a complete disregard for the norms of the wider cricket community into an art form.

Starting with Salim Malik and Ata-ur Rerhman’s match fixing issues, we move on to the disgraceful handling (or failure to handle)of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif’s steroid abuse (twice). Then we have the rampant ball tampering by these same two gentlemen that precipitated the disgraceful forfeit at The Oval.

And who can forget the bout of ‘roid rage that saw Akhtar use Asif as a dressing room piñata.

As if these aren’t enough, we have the dreadful Keystone Kops efforts surrounding Bob Woolmer’s death at the last World Cup. His untimely death set in progress one of the most shameful episodes in cricket’s history.

Hindsight tells us that Woolmer was the victim of nothing worse than bad timing, but it speaks volumes for the low regard in with Pakistani cricket is held that, after the initial stunned disbelief, we were all willing to accept that Woolmer had been murdered and that the team’s performance at that tournament was somehow responsible.

Now we have the allegations coming out of the Champion’s Trophy that Pakistan deliberately threw a game to stop India reaching the finals and that they tanked again in the semi-final. While the latter is hard to believe, the catch that Younis Khan dropped against New Zealand showed spectacular ineptitude.

The ICC have come out in support of Pakistan, stating that the allegations were not worth investigating—proving, yet again, that they can bury their heads in the sand as well as anyone. Nevertheless, the allegations won’t go away and the ICC will eventually be forced to action.

Whatever happens, it is the game of cricket that has again been damaged, blemishing a tournament that had otherwise been an outstanding success—and that’s unforgiveable.