All too easy the descent into hell
The spot-fixing trial is over; the players judged to be guilty and sentenced to jail terms
Tariq Engineer
25-Feb-2013
The spot-fixing trial is over; the players judged to be guilty and sentenced to jail terms. The post-mortem, though, is still being conducted. In the Guardian, former England captain Mike Brearley, writes that fixing is radically different from "garden variety" cheating (picking the seam, unfairly claiming a catch etc) which occurs within the framework of the game, and therefore threatens to undermine the sport itself.
In sports-mad South Africa, Cronje's good looks, excellent play as batsman and captain, and apparent decency and honesty, made him an ideal icon for the country as for advertisers. But he it was who stooped to serial dishonesty, even seducing the most junior players in his team to be his cronies. Cronje was a fascinating example of the splits that occur in so many people. On the outside, and in many of the contexts of his life, he was a decent, loving, honest, honourable man. But scratch the surface and you found this other self, this shadow self, corrupt, dishonest, devious, which he himself may have been puzzled by.
For such reasons, those guilty deserve penalties with a deterrent element. I support the calls for strong action against people engaged in such corruption.
In the Express Tribune, Faras Ghani describes what it's like, from a cricket journalist's point of view, to report on players whose fall was as meteoric as their rise.
You call each other by name, handshakes don’t have the same value anymore, food and drinks are shared and, perhaps a minor glitch of the job, the holiness of a player tones down to a meek normalcy, an act unimaginable when it all started. You forget that once upon a time, in front of that TV, you would’ve killed to meet that person, only to boast about it for months in front of the less fortunate.
In India Today, S Kanan writes that India should take active measures to curb the issue of corruption in cricket.
I had written two days ago how in the draft sports Bill being mooted by sports minister Ajay Maken, there is no mention of punishment for match-fixing and related activities. Even after the verdict in London, Maken has remained quiet and not reacted. And that is a bit surprising as he usually loves to offer comments on sporting incidents, even if it does not relate to us.
In the Telegraph, Geoffrey Boycott says that spot-fixers have got off lightly, despite their jail sentences.
But while Amir might have deserved a less punitive sentence than Butt, all four of them are getting off lightly. This sort of dishonesty ruins the whole experience of watching sport, and even playing it. Soon we will find that every unexpected result, every interesting or unusual event on the field, is surrounded by a cloud of suspicion.
Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, says that Salman Butt’s betrayal is all the more painful because of the brief glimpse he offered of a new era for Pakistan cricket after he was made captain.
He had become poetic by now and when he surveyed the ground his hand swept across the building site that Edgbaston then was. He said that, like his team, it was in the throes of rebuilding but that one day his team, like this great stadium, would be magnificent again. What a statesman, what a leader he seemed then.
Tariq Engineer is a former senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo