Skip to main content

and it just gets deeper for Pakistan

News of the World have printed the latest series of allegations in the Pakistan cricket corruption scandal. Pakistan have had a chequered history in cricket with rumours, allegations and the odd conviction prevalent for a few decades, and before that, it was presure on home umpires to cheat - long before the neutral umpire system came in.

So on top of last week's deliberate no-balls to show the players would perform on cue, now we have Salman Butt caught with a pile of dirty money in his room, a player annoyed at not being selected accusing most of his teammates of being corrupt and then the same player denying he said anything. The football club Mazhar Majeed confessed to using a money-laundering toy is now falling apart. And it all came from a tip-off....

It's time cricket authorities, and not just the ICC, had the balls to stand up to Pakistan and tell them to piss off to the B leagues, playing the likes of Zimbabwe. If the ICC don't kick them out, then countries too soft to refuse should schedule their matches at the lowest-budget venues around. Nobody will pay money to watch them and not should they.

They have ruined the sport of cricket, and there now is too much mud being thrown for it all to be made up. The Pakistan High Commissioner has played the race card, claiming it's part of a global conspiracy against Pakistan. Nope, it's a conspiracy against people who bloody cheat and ruin a gentleman's sport enjoyed around the world. I hate racism and all it stands for, but equally I despise people who feel compelled to play the race card because they are incompetent or cannot admit the truth.

Just a tenth of the accusations being true is enough to expel them from international cricket. It goes far, far too deep to just be down to a couple of bad eggs.

Don't let your arse hit the door on the way out....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...

The Melbourne Cup preview 2022

A competitive edition of the Melbourne Cup without being a great one. The La Nina weather cycle has made a mess of sporting events down the east coast in recent weeks and Flemington has not escaped that. It did race very well on Saturday considering the conditions, so fingers crossed that continues. At this stage it seems like the track will be Soft 7/Heavy 8 - rain is forecast, hopefully not enough for the track to deteriorate but also not warm or windy enough for proper drying weather as you'd normally see on the sand profile track.  There are only two international visitors in the field, Deauville Legend and Without A Fight, while another pair, Camorra and Hoo Ya Mal, will make their local debuts having been purchased for Australian syndicates. So the local moaners get their 'mostly locals' race. I think I'd prefer higher class myself but hey... Slightly different format this year, enjoy reading, bet responsibly, yada yada yada... ------------------------------------