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Pakistan ban not the answer

08/30/2010 06:22:02 AM

It is not enough for the ICC to simply ban Pakistan from international cricket. To end the cycle of corruption in Pakistani cricket, it must get to the bottom of why that corruption has become endemic within that nation's cricketing culture.

In the world of sport, nobody does farce like Pakistan cricket. It’s hard to think of a major cricketing scandal they haven’t been involved in over the past 20 years. If it was a cartoon, you’d laugh, but an embattled nation needs a shining light. Instead they have got a bunch of shonks.

The contrast between a nation half under water with 20 million people left homeless and the likelihood that their supposed national heroes have been stuffing their pockets with ill-gotten cash could not be greater.

This is a nation crippled by a succession of natural disasters compounded by an intractable war and their best and brightest are having a laugh at everyone's expense.

Their behaviour, if proven, is simply disgusting. It is one thing to take the world of international cricket for a ride, but to make merry while their country, literally in some cases, battles to keep afloat is despicable.

The fact this behaviour has been largely tolerated within a dressing room environment shows how engrained corruption has become.

That is why the ICC must do more than simply hand out a punishment. Banning Pakistan, while it would serve the ICC's short-term needs will do nothing to change that culture and five or ten years down the line, we will face the same issues.

Reform must be led from the top down. The ICC must insist on major reform of the Pakistan Cricket Board, where the success of the national team is paramount. From the top down, changes must be made to professionalise the set-up and rid that organisation of the politics which have crippled it for years.

At some point in the past, it became more profitable for a Pakistani cricketer (and many others) to lose rather than win. This situation must be reversed. Performance must be incentivised. Success duly rewarded. Accordingly, under achievement and mediocrity should not be rewarded.

To borrow a line from Paul Keating, you can always back self-interest, because at least you know it's trying. If it is always in the players' interests to be successful, then when temptation arrives, as it will, then there will be reduced incentive to involve themselves in those shady deals.

The ICC tends to regard the illegal bookies as the problem, a convenient scapegoat as they are beyond their control. In its own words, it must be 'forever vigilant'.

But vigilance alone will not address the issues of a culture of corruption. Until the ICC gets its hands dirty and starts to acknowledge and deal with the underlying motivations for corruption, then it can only be a fire spotter.

That lends further weight to a perception that the sport's governing body is nothing but a political football for the cricket's various stakeholders. For its own legitimacy as much as that of Pakistan cricket, it must act on these issues now.

 
Comments
Posted by Syed Arbab Ahmed at
02/09/2010 07:25 PM
Well betting & spot fixing is not endemic to Pakistani cricket only as the cases of Share Warne, Mark Waugh, Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja,Odombe of Kenya, Samuels of W.I etc etc they were all involve in it, the main source of initiating of match fixing lives in India, ICC need to involve Indian government in order to avoid this.
Posted by Sami at
03/09/2010 02:32 PM
Shane Warne should bow his head in shame whenver there is talk of Match-fixing rather than suggesting life bans for others. As He & Mark Waugh accepted bribes from Booky " John" themselves.

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