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My Two Cents

by Homer

I don't give a jot about Pakistan Cricket. Never have, never will. And there are plenty of reasons not to warm up  to the shenanigans of the PCB, especially under Ijaz Butt.

That said, I do care deeply about due process. And right now, 4 Pakistanis, and their national team,are being destroyed by innuendo, rumor and trial by media.

And that is absolutely not fair.

A charge has been made, the onus is now with the people making that charge to prove it. If proven, mete out the maximum punishments possible on the accused because failure to do so with give root to more innuendo, rumor and trial by media.

If the charges are not proven, I would implore the ICC to take the lead in whatever legal action necessary to right the wrongs.

And while we are at it, spare a thought for the accused. Irrespective of the outcome of the process, the four main accused are going to spend the rest of their lives living under the shadow of innuendo. The next time Aamer bowls a no ball, however marginal,what are the odds that it will be accepted as such?

And therein lies the real shame of this sorry state of affairs.

2 comments:

kny789 said...

And therein lies the problem Homer. The concrete proof is almost impossible to find. Do you think any of these players would ever be caught on tape agreeing to the fix? Are the probes into the swiss bank accounts going to lead anywhere?

What we have instead is video evidence of what looked very much like deliberate no-balls and a fixer predicting the same. We can say pretty certainly that he is no fortune teller, so it is a fair assumption that he knew from the players or from someone who instructs them that they would occur. We also have video evidence of him showing off the same money to more players (see the news of the world videos).

This is why the current "these are only allegations" shtick does not hold up. This is not a case of english players being accused of using sweets to shine the ball, or even off previous match fixing allegations (pakistan losing to bangladesh for example). In this case, with the evidence presented to you, it can be said beyond a reasonable doubt that the pakistani players deliberately bowled no balls, and that they provided knowledge of when they would do so to someone who was going to use said knowledge to place bets on cricket matches.

Yes one can argue that Kamran Akmal is being targetted (although watching the sydney test videos can you blame anyone?), but Asif and Amir are being rightfully held accountable, and from the video evidence (sawdust, taking the time to *not* set the field while having a chat with amir) it is also reasonable to assume that Butt was involved as well.

Of course due process is important, and it is unfair to speculate on where and when else these sort of incidents may have occured, but at the same time, with the evidence presented, there are 3 players who most certainly should be held back from playing proffesional cricket until the matter is fully investigated. And any accusations specifically involving the 3 No-balls are more than justifiable.

Homer said...

@kny789,

I dont dispute your line of thought, but you are placing too much premium on the video evidence. Videos can be doctored, and NOTW has previous.

I would refer you to this blog post by the Old Batsman

http://theoldbatsman.blogspot.com/2010/08/news-of-screwed.html

Furthermore , there was this

http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/02/notw_phone-hacking_scandal_involved_over.php

How much credibility should we then give the video evidence in the absence of any other supporting evidence in light of the fact that NOTW has been notorious in pushing the boundaries of the law and oftentimes crossing them?

If player careers are at stake, should some due diligence be shown?

I have no issues with them receiving the maximum possible punishment if convicted of wrong doing. But I am not going to hang a man because of public opinion.

Cheers,