A Question of Cricket

I’ve got back into “A Question of Sport” recently. For any readers outside of the UK who at this point are saying “WTF”, QofS is basically a sporting quiz on the BBC that features famous sportsmen and women past and present. It’s a little bit kooky and with Phil Tufnell on the panel it can even border on "zany" occasionally. 
 
On Monday night, Jonathan Trott was a guest on the show. The guy is a fricken genius. He knew the answers to every sport: rugby, motor racing, football the lot.

It reminded me that he and his England colleagues are finally on a little break from playing cricket, as he cosied up to Matt Dawson et al. He’s been playing cricket solidly for months and months. A rest and an appearance on QofS is just what the doctor ordered.
 
A little rest and relaxation can do wonders for professional sportsmen, just ask Carlos Tevez.
 
Not all cricketers are chillaxing right now though, with Australia currently touring South Africa and India playing host to the West Indies. Sri Lanka are also concluding their series against Pakistan with a round of One Day Internationals.

The crowds for all these series have been disappointing though, and in the case of the India vs West Indies series they've been atrocious. Less than 1000 people turned up for the opening day of the second test at cricketing institution Eden Gardens, even with the chance of Sachin Tendulkar scoring his hundredth test hundred in the offing.

But can you blame the good people of Kolkata? It's only a couple of weeks since England played India in back-to-back One Day and T20 international matches there.

Sure, when your national cricket team rock into town it's a big deal, particularly when it's your national sport as cricket is in India, but buying 3 lots of tickets for international matches within a couple of weeks of each other is going to stretch anyones purse strings.

Not only that, but the first day of the second test match was on a Monday. Now call me an old stick-in-the-mud but people do need to work occasionally, especially if they are paying exorbitant prices for, amongst other things, going to cricket matches.

Its clear that international cricket is being scheduled around TV stations nowadays, so we shouldn't be surprised. Despite the miles between India and South Africa, their games have seemingly been scheduled so that they don't overlap each other, meaning global TV audiences can enjoy both matches without missing a moment (if of course you are that keen to watch both series that is!) 

The speed at which wickets have fallen in both series thus far though, notwithstanding India's gargantuan 631/7 declared in the second test at Eden Gardens means the schedulers need not have worried so, but that's another issue. 

The point is, with the emphasis so obviously on TV schedules and not on the paying public actually going to the ground, is there any wonder Eden Gardens looked like a "morgue" on Monday, as Tony Greig put it?

And it was. And it was horrible to see. But the ICC and the cricket boards (and the TV companies) that schedule these tours only have themselves to blame.

We all love seeing cricket, but let's keep it sacred. Saturating the market never did anyone any favours. 

A lot of people watch cricket on TV and I don't have a problem with that. It's a global sport, and the TV companies do a great job in allowing us all to watch cricket wherever it is taking place in the world.

But seeing the empty stands at Eden Gardens yesterday and to a lesser extent Newlands in Cape Town last week, which wasn't full either - amazing for such a high-profile series, is going to have a negative impact on the game in the long run.
 
A Question of Sport is, in truth, a little bit dull, but it's good to have a little rest-bite from the things we love. Less cricket might, for the players as well as the paying public might just do us all a favour.
 

Imran Tahir and the Best Test Debut Ever!

Cleaned Up! Tahir on test Debut

The test match going on at Newlands, Cape Town at the moment will be remembered for many things, but being Imran Tahir's test debut for South Africa is unlikely to be one of them, unless South Africa lose 8 more wickets on day 3 and the former Hampshire spinner is required to score the winning runs.

Unlikely, but hell, crazier shit has happened today!

Australia resumed on day two with captain Michael Clarke a ton to the good and his side in a position to pass 250, the minimum Clarke had deemed as acceptable at stumps on day one.

Clarke took Australia to 285 all out and seemingly "in the match".

Tahir bowled a handful of tidy enough overs but it was other debutant, Vernon Philander who took the plaudits taking three wickets whilst Dale Steyn's ferocious fast bowling had the hyperbole-merchants going into overdrive with his figures of 4/55.

What came next was borderline farce. First South Africa capitulated for 96 all out before Australia went one "better", in the lunacy stakes, by scoring a hundred-year worst of 47 all out, yes, ALL OUT, in their second innings.

18 wickets fell for just 68 runs in the afternoon session in what was a quite unbelievable day of test cricket.

And it was needed, even if you're an Australia fan. After the negative headlines of the spot fixing trial and the poor attendances of last weeks India vs West Indies test match in Dehli, this scintillating battle has resonated all around the world, confirming what many of us have known for a long time - that at its best, nothing beats test cricket.

South Africa put on 81/1 in their second innings before stumps at the end of day two, needing 155 to win with 9 wickets still in hand and they'll fancy their chances. It is quite unbelievable that, going into day 3, we are already talking about a 4th innings chase - it's been a surreal, incredible game of test cricket.

But what of our man Tahir? Well, he might not have much more to do in this game, sadly for him. A dozen or so inoffensive overs, no wickets and two runs with the bat, but I think he might just remember his first game in test cricket rather fondly, if the Proteas seal the deal tomorrow.

Cheats Never Prosper....Hopefully!

Mother always told me "cheats never prosper", and yesterday in Southwark Crown Court, Salman Butt and Mohammed Asif learnt that lesson the hard way.

Guilty of cheating and accepting corrupt payments the two, along with young Mohammed Amir, who pleaded guilty to the same charges before this trail started, have reminded us all of the perils of corruption in professional sport.
 
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the whole case was how orchestrated and widespread this particular fixing racket allegedly was, with Mazhar Majeed, the 3 players agent, supposedly the ring-leader, taking requests to fix aspects of test matches that Pakistan played against Australia and England during the summer of 2010, from clients all over the world.
 
Requests that were placed as casually as social plans are made between friends, Majeed seemingly had control of half the Pakistani team, with Kamran Akmal and Waheb Riaz also implicated by evidence deemed inadmissible for this trial.
 
This trial centred on the bowling of three no balls, but this could potentially be a small drop in a rather large and murky ocean, if the other evidence now in circulation is to be believed.
 
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has spoken since the verdicts were handed down of his concern around suspicious events that occurred whilst he was still playing. This trial has resulted in 3 convictions, but there are almost certainly more skeletons in the cupboard.
 
Nick Hoult, cricket writer for the Telegraph newspaper and present in court throughout the trial has since written about evidence, text messages, from and to Majeed, talking about fixing set periods of play ("brackets") during test matches last summer. It is alleged that the requests from clients would go on to determine who would bowl for Pakistan and when, and how many runs they would concede off their own bowling.
 
If this was not delivered to order, Majeed would get complaints from angry punters – the game merely a vehicle to facilitate a book of illegal orders, the ebb and flow of test match cricket reduced to inconsequential farce.
 
How, if these additional allegations are true, could then Pakistan captain Butt focus on setting fields and building pressure on batsmen to take wickets whilst at the same time remembering how many runs were required from specific overs in a bracket to facilitate his agents orders? 
 
This is a major moment for the future of all forms of cricket. Illegal betting isn’t just restricted to test matches, T20 cricket has spot betting too, and given the size of the enterprise that is the IPL for example, we would be foolish to believe other forms of cricket are immune to corruption. 

The ICC need to make a stand on this immediately. The News Of The World brought evidence of this practice out of the shadows and onto crickets main agenda, and the authorities in the UK have built a case, the effect of which will reverberate around the cricketing world, but now the ICC has to continue to investigate suspicious patterns in betting and on-field activities, and hand down the most severe penalties to anyone found guilty.
 
But players need to take responsibility too. Salman Butt has earned £1.7mm from playing cricket over the past few years. It’s not a bad wage, one that he surely could have survived on without plunging into the depths of an illegal spot-fixing syndicate.
 
I read this morning how Mohammed Amir had terrorised the England batting lineup last summer, taking 19 wickets from 4 test matches played. He was a revelation and was made Pakistan's man of the series for his efforts. 

The waste of talent in his case in particular is extraordinary, and perhaps the best we can hope for is that he returns to cricket one day a reformed character, realising his potential as an exceptional bowler whilst at the same time educating young cricketers against the dangers of getting involved in the illegal spot-fixing under-world.

It may take a role model like Amir to fully deter young players from ever doing something as greedy and foolish as this in the future.