04/19/24
August 29, 2010
Pakistan Cricketers Accused of Match Fixing: At least four members of the Pakistan cricket team were involved in cheating during the current Test match against England, News of the World reports. Video released by the paper shows meetings between an undercover reporter and alleged match fixer Mazhar Majeed, who said in advance that bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif would deliver three blatant no-balls at a specific point in the match. "I'm very wary speaking about this simply because I don't know you guys," Majeed told the reporter, but later said, "I've been doing it with them, the Pakistani team, for about 2 1/2 years. And we've made masses and masses of money." An article from CricInfo explains the practice of spot fixing, "getting players/officials to act in a specified predefined manner at a particular time or during a particular session of a match, with or without adversely affecting the overall outcome of the game."
Guardian article says that the ICC anti-corruption unit is considering an examination of up to 80 Test and ODI matches involving Pakistan, including those from the above-mentioned Sydney Test.
posted by boredom_08 at 10:29 PM on August 29, 2010
Tangentially, there are ongoing questions about a rush of spot bets on a NRL match last week.
I'm largely ambivalent about sports betting, particularly in team sports, but it's clear that spot betting on relatively innocuous in-game events opens much greater opportunities for individuals to become agents of the betting syndicates. What's disturbing is that absent fake-sheikh infiltration it generally takes bookies alerting authorities to "plunges" to raise suspicion, and they don't want spot betting to go away.
(Live cricket is shown on Sky Sports in the UK, which, like Fox Sports with NRL in Australia, is Murdoch-owned and has a vested interest in the game. It was the Murdoch-owned NotW which ran the expose.)
posted by etagloh at 11:55 PM on August 29, 2010
There's also been a recent trend in both cricket and NRL TV coverage to advertise not just betting services but also current odds available. I was ambivalent about betting, but don't think it should be pushed the way it is being done now.
I agree that everyone seems to be compliant in it's encouragement, but nobody wants to ask the hard questions about the long term impact of sports betting.
Watching the EPL last night, I couldn't help but notice that Bolton's sponsor had the ads at the Reebok running in Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese for an online betting service. Somewhere, Chairman Mao, Uncle Ho and King Chulalongkorn are spinning rapidly in whatever urn or place of embalment they are currently residing in.
posted by owlhouse at 02:27 AM on August 30, 2010
Somewhere, Chairman Mao, Uncle Ho and King Chulalongkorn are spinning rapidly in whatever urn or place of embalment they are currently residing in.
If there's one thing that keeps me coming back here day after day, it's sentences like that. Bravo!
On the betting thing, it has gone too far the moment betting starts affecting the outcome of the game - or any aspect of it, frankly. The news people on TV yesterday seemed to be very anxious to tell me that there was "no suggestion that the result of the match itself was fixed" as though that somehow made this less bad. It's a bit like the PED thing - we want to know that what we're seeing is really what we're seeing. The Sky commentators observed the no balls in real time and stressed the point about them being way over the line to the point that one or two more and they'd have had Bumble out there doing a piece-to-camera during the lunch break on where it was all going wrong for the Pakistani bowlers.
I like a flutter on sport, but have never got into these daft spot bets or really into forecasting scores or spreads. If I place a bet it's usually just straight on the outcome of the event - anything more specific tends to ruin my enjoyment of watching it.
Oh, and lifetime bans all round please for these greedy twats.
posted by JJ at 05:49 AM on August 30, 2010
I couldn't help but notice that Bolton's sponsor had the ads at the Reebok running in Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese
Same thing at the Villa game.
posted by yerfatma at 10:18 AM on August 30, 2010
A few of the places I've read about this online have brought up the death of Bob Woolmer in the 2007 World Cup, hours after Pakistan lost to Ireland in a huge upset. I remember there being a lot of speculation about that match being fixed at the time. It makes you wonder.
posted by afx237vi at 04:15 PM on August 30, 2010
Why don't they just keep it secret who will be officiating from even the officials?
posted by bperk at 01:10 PM on August 31, 2010
Match fixing: a partial explanation of the unpredictability of Pakistani cricket.
There were also accusations last (southern) summer about their collapse in the Sydney Test.
And the last thing most people in Pakistan want or need to hear about right now.