Acting the function of the rear end of a male cow

Hello and welcome back to my blog

The pace of cricket news slowed slightly this week (unless your an England player on Twitter) while investigations were completed and allegations verified, giving people pause to ask questions, not about the future of cricket (and Pakistan in particular) which is uncertain for the moment, but about the past and to what extent spot-fixing and match fixing was really in play.

In New Zealand Martin Crowe wrote about the second test in Wellington between the Black Caps and Pakistan last year and the SEVEN chances that went down in the home side’s second innings (263 seemed an improvement over the 99 first time round but maybe not) and admitted that Mark Nicholas (of Channel 9) rang him regarding the Sydney Test this year and how remarkable it was to see a team’s effort ebb and flow to such a degree. Commentary boxes on either side of the Tasman debated on-air the dreadful nature of the Pakistan fielding and often concluded that there wasn’t the right attitude to being in the field, apparently off-air their concerns were more like suspicions and when Ramiz Raja commented last night (during the 2020 between England and Pakistan) that the players don’t seem to have the right attitude in the field, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is how commentators will refer to the real issue and thereby dilute its importance

To a certain degree I have waited for a writer to try and link the match and spot fixing issue to the perceived 2020 greed and Paul Lewis of the New Zealand Herald obliged:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/cricket/news/article.cfm?c_id=29&objectid=10671225
I agree with the words but not the tone of his very first sentence, that cricket has itself to blame. Lewis suggests that given the IPL, Stanford and even the new NZC player contracts the need for more money fuels the match fixing and spot fixing market, a connection that will hopefully be treated with the contempt and derisive laughter it deserves. That anyone could look at professional players and sporting bodies in a sport this size, trying to gain value for their trade (to even get close to Football or Rugby) and say that this match fixing is part of it is baffling. First, match fixing has been around far longer than 2020 cricket and likely exited when it was still a gentleman’s game (a nickname only ironically used by cricket fans - something Lewis is clearly not) and second, I hope that in any future effort to get a pay rise, this journalist won’t see fabricating/manipulating the news as a natural step. The only way I agree with his initial statement is in the very lugubrious sense that because cricket is such a diverse sport that is played over a long time with multiple facets and ever changing conditions that within its depths there is potential for such corruption
Also, Lewis states that diarrhoea is a viable alternative to watching the IPL but then gets off the toilet long enough to enjoy the NZ domestic 2020; again the slightly racist/partisan element appears – they are the problem but when we do it that’s fine. This ugly feature also appears in Mark Richardson’s piece below (why does NZ Herald collect these people) where his experience of the team ethic in the New Zealand teams precludes any corruption. OK but does that mean that Pakistan teams (and by extension the players in them) lack this ethic?

Lastly I will just draw attention to a couple exasperating articles:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/cricket/news/article.cfm?c_id=29&objectid=10671170
“...banning Pakistan would be a regrettable knee-jerk response. World cricket needs Pakistan; they have some very good players”. I think this conclusion says more about Mark Richardson than I could in a thousand words. I would only ask, what if Bangladesh were in Pakistan’s place (historians can chuckle here), would banning be acceptable then? Or what if it was New Zealand and Richardson’s ‘team ethic’ wasn’t enough to prevent corruption?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/cricket/news/article.cfm?c_id=29&objectid=10671450
Former batsmen Bryan Young states that he would be fine with the 1994 test being erased from records even though it includes his first test century. I wonder if a player whose second century wasn’t 267 would be at such ease to go diving into the records books

(Please note that Richardson and Young are only guilty of simplistic analysis; Lewis on the other hand should know better)

Well that’s it from here and I hope you join me again
It’s good bye for now