Punter's Paradise

Can it really be true? Two record-breaking run chases in the same week, in venues and on pitches that could not be more different to each other. The MA Chidambaram Stadium and the WACA have little in common apart from this magnificent week of Test cricket.

Both games had incredible swings of fortune. Betting agencies around the world must have been tearing their hair out, trying to frame markets that kept swinging from one extreme to another. In Perth, South Africa went from being rank outsiders before the start to a brief stint as favourites in the first few overs of the match to level pegging before Mitchell Johnson’s devastating burst. After that, their share price plummeted again until it started looking a bit healthier when they bowled well in the second innings. Brad Haddin’s innings effectively blew the price out again to unbackable odds, Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla briefly brought South African money back into the reckoning until two late wickets on the fourth evening restored Australian supremacy. The rest is now amazing history!

How do I know all this? Well, apart from being a keen punter myself, I was constantly kept abreast of the betting fluctuations with the Channel 9 commentary team’s regular advertorials for an Internet betting agency. To legitimise it even more, we were reminded, nay comforted, by the reassurance that this mob were official partners of Cricket Australia. Oh, that’s a relief!.

It is astounding the governing body of a national sport so openly aligns itself with an Internet betting agency to the extent that it is now part of the television broadcast. One would not expect anything better from a commercial television station - no one really believes that ethics have any place in their corporate jungle but for Cricket Australia to so publicly sell itself to gambling makes a mockery of their so-called charter to sell cricket as the custodian of a sport that is supposed to be about grassroots, families and young children.

As if cricket didn’t already have a slight problem with gambling - anyone recall incidents involving certain high-profile international cricket captains? Was it just my imagination or did the ICC appoint Sir Paul Condon to take a forensic look at the betting cancer that was gripping cricket a few years ago? Perhaps Hansie Cronje finally backed the South Africans today and was able to exert a bit of divine intervention.

Just yesterday, three A-League soccer players in Australia were fined for betting on games in their own league. The Football Federation of Australia was forced to publicly admonish these players who were apparently unaware of the seriousness of their misdemeanour! Oh really? They expect us to believe that?

And in this sort of climate, we have a national sporting body and a national broadcaster encouraging prime-time audiences, including children, to get involved with betting in a Test match in progress. How do the men in suits, who cash the cheques, keep a straight face when warning their employees (the athletes) to stay completely away from gambling on the sport while quickly checking that the next commentary stint has the latest odds available for an on-air plug?

Would any responsible sporting body allow themselves to publicly encourage viewers to drink XYZ Whisky, Bourbon or Rum? I’m not talking about an advertisement that is clearly packaged as such – I’m talking about something that is subtly woven into the actual commentary itself so it becomes part of the analysis of the cricket, from the expert commentators whose job it is to educate the viewers.

Of course it’s much more effective than a pure advertisement. That’s why Cricket Australia has probably pocketed a tidy little sum to be the ‘official partner’ of this betting agency. Perhaps some of that money will go back into grassroots cricket or junior development or towards player welfare to help the next cricketer who falls off the rails and has a drinking or gambling problem.

I’ve got nothing against sports betting per se. I’m one of the most avid punters going around. I love having a bet on the cricket or the footy or on two flies crawling up a wall. It’s an adult pursuit that is probably best done in private, away from the inquiring minds of the innocent, the young and the vulnerable. It’s hard enough explaining some overt advertising messages to young children without them hearing it legitimised by the commentators and the game’s governors.

P.S. My young son may just have sensed that something was amiss anyway when I started cheering every South African run this afternoon. I didn’t really know how to tell him that daddy had backed the Proteas at ridiculous odds when they began their chase and that Santa Claus would now be quite generous this year!