Only cricketers can save cricket- Peter Roebuck

[vamos_rafa]

Pakistan fans cheer at the fall of an Australian wicket, Australia v Pakistan, 1st Twenty20, Edgbaston, July 5, 2010 If the fixing malaise isn't cleaned, there might not be any fans left to put up a show for © Getty Images Enlarge Related Links News : Sri Lankan players also approached News : Tim Nielsen reveals suspicious approaches Rob Steen : Sport's greatest evil News : Mohammad Amir earns sympathy amid scandal In Focus: Match-fixing Cricket has been leading a double life. At the same time it is a valiant and beautiful game played with intent by a collection of superb players, and a corrupted activity exploited by too many of its most respected practitioners. Both faces contain truths. Now the issue concerns which face is to prevail. Sport provides an opportunity to shine, a chance to emerge from the pack, to fulfil the dreams of youth. It also offers primarily a chance to make money, to exploit and grab. As money has flowed into the game so the balance between these forces has changed. Cricket has become a battle ground between the savoury and the unsavoury. Now cricket has a decision to make. Does it intend to confront fixing or merely try to contain it? Hitherto the game has been feeble-minded about its handling of the blight. Naivety has been part of the reason. Cricket underestimated the power of gambling. It is also an unusually unstable game, lacking a core of established countries to hold it together in testing times. Each nation has its own profound issues to sort out. Corrupt or chaotic societies promote weak institutions. Sri Lankan cricket often stumbles back into the hands of a reluctant old guard, the Pakistan board changes with the government, West Indian cricket has hardly been a byword for progressive thought, and England embraced Stanford. Some of the minnows have been caught with snouts in the trough. Governance has been poor. The game has not been run by philosopher kings. Accordingly cricket has lacked the single-mindedness needed to tackle corruption in its ranks. To the contrary it has tried to ignore it. Nor is it any use pointing a finger at the ICC. The governing body is a convenient scapegoat, but the malaise is widespread and involves the entire community. It needs to be tackled with common intent. Match-fixing has been condemned by word but not by deed. Cricket has not done anything serious enough in its response. At times the game forgives its champions too much, seems as besotted as a lovelorn teenager with a film star. Culprits have been welcomed back into the game as soon as the siren has blown. The message is clear and the result is inevitable. The consequences of exposure are lame. Greg Chappell was hounded over one foolish but notably open act. The fixers have been forgiven for infinitely worse conduct. As much can be told from the respect accorded to past offenders. In Outlook magazine Rohit Mahajan quotes a senior India player as saying that the BCCI should do more to get the filth out of the game. Punishment meted to the guilty should be "severe enough to act as a deterrent". A BCCI official points out that "Azhar is an MP, Prabhakar a coach and Jadeja a cricket expert on a respected TV channel. What kind of deterrence would that serve, if they are rehabilitated so easily after committing the biggest crime in sport?" To suppose that youngsters from impoverished backgrounds cannot remain honest is to insult their upstanding brothers and sisters. It's harder but by no means impossible. Moreover, the favoured have hardly been immune. It's a question of character not origins It's unfair to single out these players. The malaise was much deeper. Anyhow the position is the same in Pakistan, and elsewhere. Among those named in the Qayyum report, still the most thorough official document published about fixing, two have been coaching the current Pakistan touring party, another has been assisting England and a fourth has been working on television. By all means let them work outside the game, but it's unwise for cricket to be so hospitable. It creates the impression that the offences were minor. Nor is it sensible to assume that fixing has a short history with two bad episodes. No one familiar with the Tehelka tapes is under any such illusion. All the evidence indicates that the ignominy has been going as long as cricket in Sharjah, and that means a quarter of a century. Mukesh Gupta, the only bookie to be interviewed on the topic, provided a long list of famous players on his books, some of whom retired 20 years ago. He has been disgraced but not discredited. However it's time to stop blaming the bookies. It's another instance of passing the buck. Since time began they have been trying to shave the odds. Bookmaking is a cut-throat game, not a prim activity undertaken by maiden aunts. It's time to hold the players themselves accountable, time for them to stop taking and start giving, time to change the culture of the sport, time to stop the whining about pay differentials and poor backgrounds and pressure. It's time to tell the cricketers that they are stewards of the game, and those incapable of upholding its better tradition have no business taking part. Certainly it's time to stop making excuses. To suppose that youngsters from impoverished backgrounds cannot remain honest is to insult their upstanding brothers and sisters. It's harder but by no means impossible. Moreover, the favoured have hardly been immune. It's a question of character not origins. Only the cricketers can remove the poison, and it's up the seniors to set the example. Not the least disturbing aspect of the revelations has been the willingness of captains to dishonour their position. No country ought to appoint any leader hovering under a cloud. No IPL franchise ought to seek the services of any player with question marks against his name. With its dusk-till-dawn parties and easy pickings, the IPL is part of the problem. At once it is rewarding and destructive. Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and Ravi Bopara missed the start of an English season so they could play in the third edition of the league. None of them has subsequently been as effective. Money is all around, and too many of the players are swayed by it. Ruination lies that way. They'd be better advised copying Warren Buffet and Desmond Tutu and the true sages of the period. Give it all away, or most of it anyhow. Focus on your true calling. Unavoidably the game is in the hands of the players. Anti-corruption bodies and even honest administrators can apply themselves to the task with the utmost devotion, and still the curse will continue. It will just go deeper underground. Only the players can protect cricket, the game that has served them so well. And they can start by reporting all dubious conduct. In the last few weeks, many Australians have emerged saying they were approached by dodgy types. In all cases they immediately informed officials. Two points arise. Hereafter matters of this sort cannot be kept secret. Publicity is a powerful weapon against enemies that prefer privacy. If some of the conversations turn out to be innocent, so be it. The bookies need to be stopped at source, before they get their tentacles into an impressionable player or another worthless captain. Manoj Prabhakar exhibits a video tape at a press conference, New Delhi, May 27, 2000 The Tehelka tapes circa 2000 show that fixing isn't an evil limited to just two episodes © AFP Enlarge Although laudable, it is unsettling that only a few players have spoken up. Either they have fertile imaginations or the rest are holding their tongues. A few champions from the past have shown their mettle. When Sanath Jayasuriya was offered a king's ransom to sign on decades ago, he threw the bookie out of his hotel room, and contacted a board member. Although his brilliance had already emerged, he was still a junior player, and it's hard to believe he was the first player to be contacted. If the players are serious about the game, they will lead the fight to save its name. Dressing rooms are naked places. Admittedly cheats are clever. ICL's players were shocked and then angry to discover that some of their matches could have been charades. One said that "odd things did happen, but, mate, I thought we were just a bit raw". Another experienced international admitted that in hindsight the fixing had been obvious, but at the time it all happened so quickly. Friendships were broken by the fixing. In the ICL, as elsewhere, the honest majority were betrayed by the greedy. It is no longer good enough to see, hear and commit no evil. If a Test match at Lord's can be affected then so can everything else. Cricket ought to assume that the corruption runs deep. The fightback starts not in board rooms or police stations but in dressing rooms. And it should be taken up by television stations and every other part of the cricketing community. If money is the problem, then most likely it is also the solution. If dishonesty is the disease, then honesty is the best cure. The ICC can only put out the fires. The players themselves need to get the job done. Cricket is not a monastery. Let them drink and carouse and bet on horses and wear fancy clothes and drive sweet cars, but let them not bite the hand that feeds them. The cheats need to be drummed out of the game or else the public will sooner or later rebel. It's time the game was rescued from the worst and given back to the best. It is a mission that only the players themselves can accomplish. In the end it's simple. Just Say No.

[hitman1980]

So BCCI should act hard on fixers (which they already did) but ACB should just give small fines (warne and mark waugh) .. Nice going ... :) Wht can BCCI do if a fixer is elected as an MP.. or some pro paki channel employs jadega ... Seems like article like these will come up from aussie media cos I guess Howard is still paining them .. :D

[putrevus]

this guy is an idiot, pete rose admitted to gambling, he was banned from baseball , what he does out of baseball is none of baseball business, he only gambled not committed any criminal offence. Azaruddin may be an MP but he cannot be part of cricket anymore, Prabhakar did his time and now is coach, what do they want BCCI to do hang them ,it is cricket board not vigilante union.Gosh These idiots write so much crap. India was the toughest among all nations what did Aussies do let Warne and Waugh walk with small fine talk about bloody hypocrisy from these bastards, India is not Pakistan where cheats are heralded as national heros.

[Hindustani]

Peeter toephuck DERP DERP

[Sachinism]

They also tried to cover up the Warne drug scandal

[vamos_rafa]

And also underplayed Guru Greg's underarm bowling.

[riwi999]

This is a rare article from Roebuck that I am 100% in agreement with. For one, it is easy to understand (and that, for a Roebuck article, is a rarity! :-) ) Secondly, I agree with the point he is making. You can blame bookies for everything but finally if you are corruptible, you invite it on yourself. Imran Khan said so in his interview the other day too. Taali ek haath se nahin bajti. (You cannot clap with one hand). Cricketers finally control the fate of the game. Yes, with better advice, mentorship things can improve. It comes down to character. I believe this malaise has been going on for decades. Remember the story about Headingley 1981 when Lillee and Marsh reportedly bet on England winning? The media was much less powerful and advanced then. Otherwise, we could have had quite some squirming then itself. I agree with Yassir Hameed. Jo pakda gaya wo chor. He who gets caught is the crook. I think there are plenty walking around, who have not been caught. Current players, ex-players. Maybe not match-fixers but spot-fixers.

[riwi999]

I don't understand the line of reasoning here. Just because the Australian board did not come down strongly on Warne and Mark Waugh, this article by Roebuck is rubbish? Where, in this article, is he supporting Cricket Australia's stand? All he is saying is that Greg Chappell has paid many times for that one on-field blunder as captain. That was certainly unsporting. But what these guys are doing is much worse, they are underperforming to make some money on the side.

[achilles]

Peter Roebuck has changed since he wrote that wonderful article in the aftermath of the Symmo-Bhajji controversy.

[The Outsider]

I generally have a lot of time for Roebuck and see his point about more actions needed on behalf of everyone involved, but to quote an Indian report about the rehab of Azhar, Jadeja, and Prabhakar flies in the face of all reason. They never played cricket for India again, Jadeja did so at the domestic level only after the court overturned his ban. They have not occupied any position in Indian cricket. What more is the BCCI supposed to do? In fact, BCCI was one of the boards who actually did take strong and decisive action in 2000. Jadeja was a middle order regular in ODIs and Azhar had struck a century in what turned out to be his last test match. Both were effectively banned for life. How does match fixing prevent someone from becoming a MP? Why should a BCCI ruling on match fixing extend to a private news channel hiring someone? You just can't snatch away the right of people to earn their livelihood based on a match fixing expose, specially if it's not even solid enough to survive judicial scrutiny.

[cowboysfan]

This problem is not going away as far as Pakistan is concerned.all they see around them is a country falling apart and they want to make a quick buck .Add to this this the IPL shunning them and you will have a situation like this again in the near future.

[ina_jawaan]

Can't be bothered to read Roebuck articles - yawn!

[achilles]

This problem is not going away as far as Pakistan is concerned.all they see around them is a country falling apart and they want to make a quick buck .Add to this this the IPL shunning them and you will have a situation like this again in the near future.

They only have themselves to blame. Instead, the choose RAW and India as the subject of blame.

[vvvslaxman]

Tx Roebuck, I thought hockey players should save cricket.