There was a
time when I used to watch cricket avidly. That was years ago. Players like
Vivian Richards, Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Botham, and Malcolm Marshall, while I wouldn’t
go so far as to say they were my heroes, were players I enjoyed watching.
Over the
years, however, I have gone off cricket. That is not because I was
disillusioned with the stories of match-fixing scandals that started coming
out, periodically, in the past ten years, usually (though not exclusively)
involving players from the Indian subcontinent.
I went off
cricket because, as I became long in the tooth, I simply couldn’t summon up
enough concentration to watch a game which (in test match cricket) went on for five
days and still ended without a result, and the shorter version went on for a
whole day. I simply don’t have the
stamina. (That does not however mean that I can cope with games which are of shorter
duration, for example Football. I can’t understand what is there to enjoy in a
game where aggressive men with attentional deficits run about for ninety minutes,
ostensibly trying to kick a ball into the nets at the opposite ends of the
ground, but, really trying to kick opponents’ heads and testicle, trying to trip
others up, doing, in other words, whatever it is that men with impulse control issues can think of—if
the erratic firing of their maldeveloped brain cells can be called thinking—to inflict
grievous body harm on one another. In the past I allowed myself, out of my
inability to say No, to be kidnapped to some grotty pub, serving crap food and
rough looking waitresses and clientele that, were they not busy shouting
obscenities at the plasma screen showing a game between, say, Arsenal and
Spurs, would probably be lighting up matches with their farts for a ‘bit of a
laugh’. But not now; life is too short to watch Football.)
The only
game these days I can bring myself to watch is women’s tennis, preferably when Maria Sharapova
or Daniela Hantuchova is playing (and the camera is focusing on them from
behind as they bend down to receive the serve of their opponents).
Earlier
this year I watched the cricket world cup final with an Indian friend (who was
terribly excited about it, which was understandable, as India had reached the
final). I just about managed that but found it hard-going.
I therefore
had not devoted my diminishing energies and concentration to the spot-fixing
scandal involving a cricket match played between England and Pakistan last year.
Three Pakistani
cricketers, one Butt and two Mohammads, fell foul of some ridiculous act that probably
does not exist anywhere other than in Britain. One of the Mohammads accepted his
guilt while the other two, including Butt (who was the captain of the Pakistan
cricket team at the time) decided (unwisely, as it turned out) to contest the
charges.
Both were found guilty of charges—which, couched in convoluted legal gobbledegook,
essentially were that these guys are cheats—by a majority verdict.
The judge—who,
going by the sanctimonious sermon he delivered to the condemned men, seems like
a pompous ass—gave the cricketers length jail sentences.
Some
sanctimonious pompous asses in the cricketing media, however, think that the
sentences were not harsh enough. For example, Simon Hughes—a third-rate county
cricketer and a second-rate analyst / commentator. This guy played cricket in
the 1980s and was so shite that he was not considered good enough to play for
England, which is saying something, as the English cricket team in the 1980s
was so shite that practically every cricket-playing nation was wiping the floor
with us. After his mediocre, undistinguished career came to an undistinguished end Hughes
became a journalist and commentator. To say Hughes talks crap would be insulting faeces. He frequently poses as a technical analyst and bores everyone into
catatonia by talking his head off about the position of the batter, the friction of
the fabric of his trousers against his testicles, the angle of his bat, his
grip on the handle of the bat, the distance between his hands and the surface
of the bat, the wind velocity, the action of the bowler, the friction of the
fabric of the trousers against his testicles, the condition of the ball, the time
of the day, the number of clouds in the sky—all of which conspire somehow
to bring into effect whatever it is that Hughes has been asked to provide his expert comment
on. It might be a wicket or it might be a boundary—it does not matter; he talks
the same shit. It is impossible to take him seriously. Hughes has now written
an idiotic article, giving the readers the benefits of his wisdom, and has come
up with a five point plan (which will be discarded by Boy Scouts and which suggests
that the man has the intelligence of a gnat) to ‘stamp out cheats’.
The
sentences are excessively harsh, unnecessary and stupid.
Let’s take
the sentence handed down to Butt. The disgraced skipper of the Pakistani
cricket team has gone down for 30 months; however, if his behaviour is ‘good’
he can come out after 15 months. He will then be on a license for the remaining
15 months of his sentence during which he will be monitored. The other two
cricketers who have received shorter sentences (but still way too long) will
also be out on license after serving half their sentences if they 'behave'.
None of the cricketers is a British citizen. Presumably they have no place to live in England, no
means of subsistence, and no medical cover. All of these will have to be
provided to them when they come out. Who will foot the bill? Why, the British
tax-payers. I fail to see why British tax-payers have to foot the bill for
something which is not even considered a crime in many countries. (On a
different tack, this was also the argument, I remember reading, of Julian
Assange the boss of WikiLeaks (which, rumour has it, is about to go bust due to
lack of funds. The legal definition of statutory rape in the UK is apparently
different from that in the Scandinavian countries).
Mind you, I
am not blaming the poor Pakistani sods for this. I am pretty sure they did not
want to be in this position. They did not come willingly to the UK to stand the
trial; they were forced to come here and stand trial.
And what
was their ‘crime’? They took money and Butt, the captain, instructed the two
bowlers to bowl a no-ball each. When a bowler bowls a no-ball the side that is
batting is awarded one run. What the trio were accused (and found guilty) of
was therefore ‘spot-fixing’ and not ‘match-fixing’.
They were
investigated by the cricket’s governing body and were handed out bans of
between five to ten years. That should
have been enough. There are those who are now criticising the International
Cricket Control (ICC) of being too lenient and are demanding that the
cricketers be banned for life. The camel-faced captain of the English
cricked team, Andrew Strauss , has weighed in and described the ICC as toothless
tiger. Strauss would do well to reduce his waist-line and score runs against
quality oppositions instead of adding more hot air to environment.
Those demanding harsher punishment by the ICC are
wrong. A life-ban would not have been justified in this case. There is no
evidence that the actions of the cricketers adversely influenced the outcome of
the match (which, I guess, would be more difficult to arrange in any case, as
it would require involvement of several players in the team). There is not even evidence to suggest that their actions accorded significant advantage (or disadvantage) to their team or the English team. After all how much difference a single run can make? This is not to
say that the cricketers did not do wrong. However, the punishment meted out
must be proportional to the wrongdoing. And a life-ban for
spot-fixing is way too excessive.
Similarly
the argument that the time-limited bans should be converted to life-bans simply
because they have been found guilty in a criminal court in a country and sent
to jail is a straw man. The criminal court did not hear any evidence that was
not available to the ICC. The three cricketers had to stand trial because their cheating is considered
as criminal as per an act which came into existence in England in 2005. In
some other country this type of cheating—because that’s what it is at the end
of the day, no different, some might argue, from an athlete or a swimmer who
takes banned performance enhancing drugs and deliberately changes the outcome
of a competition in his or her favour; and they are not prosecuted—would not
have been considered a criminal act. Why, even in our country, before 2005, it
would not have been considered a criminal act.
And the
sentences are totally disproportionate to the crime the cricketers have been found guilty of. This is a
country where MP’s who were systematically defrauding the tax-payers for thousands of pounds for years were given jail sentences of only a few months.
An old friend of mine used to work as a care-assistant in a hostel for homeless
people, some or more of whom, he used to tell me, were pretty nasty pieces of work—persistent
and prolific offenders with lists of criminal activities longer than M1. For
their 15th GBH they would be sent to prison for 12 months, would
come out on license after 6 and would be recalled for one night in prison after
they had breached conditions of their license 5 times, and released out again
so that they could get on with their daily routine of drug dealing and other
nefarious activities. I did not see any of the cheating bankers in the City of
London go to jail for their greed. But we have seen it fit to condemn three cricketers, some from impoverished backgrounds, to lengthy
prison sentences.
Butt (that
is an unfortunate name given the circumstances in which he now finds himself),
Asif and Amir are most definitely cheats. Prosecuting them was way over the top. Their prosecution was waste of British tax payers' money and their
conviction makes no sense.
