A sad day for cricket
Apparently there are no depths to which these blasted match-fixers will not stoop
Alan Tyers
30-Aug-2010
Four England players in a row with their arms crossed. What are the odds? • Getty Images
The Incident Room, Marylebone Police Station
The Chief Inspector called for silence.
"Right, lads," he said. "Obviously this is going to be a tough case to crack. We've got the bookmaker on video, we've got the no-balls on video. Does anyone know how to work the video?"
After just 25 minutes, one of the younger PCs managed to get it going.
"Good work, Dibble," said the Chief Inspector. "I knew it was worth us getting some college graduates into the force.
"Now, listen up, men. We can all learn from Dibble's work with the video there, as once again we can see how technology is at the forefront of our War on Match-Fixing. As are newspapers. Thank god for them. It would be much easier if they could just solve all our cases. Dibble, make a note of that: go down to Wapping and see if they can lend us a few bodies to clear this backlog of burglaries.
"Obviously it's a sad day for cricket, and for me, because I wanted to play golf today. We just don't know how deep this goes throughout the team, sadly. There are lots of things to look out for, because these spot-fixers will bet on anything, no matter how outlandish it might seem. A Pakistan batsman surviving an over. A Pakistan fielder holding a catch off the first ball of an over. Or indeed any ball.
"And it's not just the visitors we have to watch. I've had reports that bets are being taken on how long spectators can stay awake while watching Jonathan Trott go through his pre-ball preparations. The length of an agonisingly soul-searching Kevin Pietersen pre-match interview about his batting woes. Number of Stuart Broad tantrums in a match. Anything.
The phone rang.
"Put it on speaker," said the inspector.
Minutes later, it was done.
"All right lads," said a voice. "It's Honest Salim here, your friendly neighbourhood bookmaker. I'm doing a special: generous odds on the police ever managing to clear up dodgy betting in cricket."
"What are the odds?" asked the Chief Inspector.
"I'll give you 1000-1," said Salim. "Got to be worth a tenner, innit?"
"No thanks," said the Chief Inspector. "We're not that stupid."
Alan Tyers is a freelance journalist based in London. All the quotes and "facts" in this article are made up (but you knew that already, didn't you?)