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Journalism of Courage
The International Cricket Council has taken a rather hands-off approach to the current spot-fixing scandal. In first comments,ICC President Sharad Pawar appeared to advise patience till the police in England completed their investigation into the Lords Test. The allegation,based on an undercover operation by a London newspaper,is that Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir deliberately sent down no-balls at pre-determined points in the match against England. But beyond the specifics of the two bowlers actions,what should concern cricket administrators is how the episode has exposed a wider suspicion about match-fixing.
After Hansie Cronje was found out a decade ago,widespread checks on match-fixing were supposed to have been put in place. For one,the ICC set up its Anti-Corruption and Security Unit. Some cricketers caught in the larger shadow of the Cronje scandal lost their places in national squads then including the Indian and Pakistani teams. Even now,occasionally news of a player being dropped brings on speculation about a possible match-fixing connection. But the system is opaque,and crickets biggest caution against fixing is the belief that a cricketer would be daft to jeopardise his career,and the tremendous material returns international players enjoy. Why would a young man in sight of a lucrative and successful career risk it? We may never know when and why Mohammad Asif could have lost appreciation of the kind of role he played in Pakistans revival this summer. What we do have currently is fertile ground for suspicion around the world and the less consequential a match,the higher the suspicion.
