Sport is made for betting

Could sport be fighting back against the corrupt individuals who wish to poison their respective games to line their own pockets? Encouraging signs this week with cricket and rugby league both acting to stem the tide. In cricket, first the British Crown Prosecution Service announced it was charging the three Pakistan cricketers with obtaining and accepting corrupt payments, and conspiracy to cheat. Bear in mind that the CPS was the authority who were laughed out of court when trying to convict leading jockey Kieran Fallon of pulling horses a few years ago. Let's hope they've got their act together since then. Long drawn out cases which ultimately fail ruin reputations and make lawyers rich. A day later, the ICC have come down hard on the three players, with minimum suspensions of five years. Expect appeals from each player pleading their innocence first, and then for leniency. There's legs in this case yet, but it's encouraging to see the ICC impose serious penal...

News breaking tonight of another betting scandal involving the Pakistan cricket team and the News of the World, an English tabloid newspaper. A middle-man is alleged to have arranged no-balls at specific times in the England first innings in the current Test match at Lord's, in return for substantial amounts of money. The no-balls in question bowled by Mohammed Amir were not even close, at least a foot over, which is curious, the one for Mohammed Asif wasn't so blatant. But is it as clear-cut as it seems? For me, it sounds too perfect. Pakistan are easy targets - they don't have a great reputation for integrity, and linking it to illegal bookmakers on the sub-continent is the perfect modus operandi as they have no licence or audit trail. People say that millions get bet on this stuff, despite all sorts of previous allegations about these markets, but there's nowhere to prove it is true or not. Was the evidence shown to anyone before the event, or did it only emerge co...

All the concerns from Australia, England and other nations proved justified - Pakistan is not a safe place for foreigners, particularly professional sportsmen. Pakistan, such a talented cricket nation, have been out of the Test arena for over a year before this series against Sri Lanka, the one close neighbour who thought they would have no trouble with security. But even that proved too much of gamble this morning as terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan team bus as they arrived for the third day of the Test match in Lahore. Thankfully, none of the injuries to the five players hit by gunfire are reported to be serious. India had its troubles in Mumbai but that was a political attack rather than anything involving sport. Pakistan is now on the outer, I can't see any international matches being played there for a long time. If they are able to 'host' matches in the near future, then Dubai, England or Sharjah are possible venues. This could be a watershed moment for the ICC. It...

Cricket has to be commended for trialling modern technology, but they've got to do a better job than the referral experiment in the West Indies v England series. If you're going to make the crowd wait for a decision, at least get it right! There have been some dead set shockers so far, and it's only the first test of the series. You can't expect umpires to be perfect when they only see the action once, at full pace. But when the bloke in the box with all the replays can only do worse, then what's the point??

This is something I never thought would happen. After the debacle of the ICC bowing to pressure from the Asian power-holders and overturning the Pakistan forfeit at the Oval in 2006, they've now gone and reversed the overturned decision! Read the Cricinfo article here . Key piece of the article: "The ICC has no power under the laws of cricket to decide that results should be altered, whether it feels it's 'inappropriate' or otherwise," Tony Lewis, the chairman of the MCC's world cricket committee, had said in a statement in October. "The ICC's decision is wrong and sets a very dangerous precedent. Cricket is the worse for this decision." Too bloody right too. Overturning decisions weeks, months or years later is a farce, it makes a complete mockery of the sport. UK horseracing should take note. Being able to take a protest to court, months after all punters have been paid out is just ridiculous.

So if wasn't enough that Zimbabwe wasn't instantly kicked out of international cricket forever, now we have the farce of the infamous England v Pakistan 4th test match from 2006 being declared a draw instead of a forfeit. Re-write the history books, just to appease the way-too-powerful Asian bloc who dominate cricket and are destroying it bit-by-bit. It's not enough that the record for most Test wickets in history has gone to a guy who blatantly chucks, it's not enough that Harbahjan Singh had his charges of racism in Australia toned down because of the power of Indian TV rights, nor is it enough that the IPL threatens to make players quit the international game for a chance to make millions, it won't stop. The ICC has no balls and the game will suffer for it.