The Cheats’ Game!

Poor and innocent ordinary Pakistanis woke up for their sahoor to start their fasts in the holy month of Ramadan with the stunning and disgraceful news that seven of our cricketers the so-called heroes and sports ambassadors of Pakistan have been found guilty of match and spot fixing at Lords. London-based fixer Mazhar Majeed was their agent ( or the players were his agent!) who dealt with various book-makers and the match fixing mafia in India and UK. A journalist of a tabloid ( also a Pakistani) posed as a dealer and gave money to this man who revealed that Aamir and Asif would bowl three no-balls at fixed periods in the Lords test match and they did the next day. Every thing was recorded secretly and now the Scotland Yard is investigating the disgraced players. The fixer claimed among other startling things that captain Salman Butt was in his pocket and he was the ring leader of at least seven corrupt players of the current team playing in England who he said are involved in match and spot fixing. Wahab Riaz has also been grilled over the allegations. The three players Aamir, Asif and Butt have got the permission to come to home for spending Eid after giving affidavits that they would be available any time to the UK police authorities for further investigations. ICC has provisionally suspended the trio and Wahab Riaz as it seems also have been asked not be included till the completion of ICC probe. The players have answered the show-cause notice and now the ICC will form a panel to probe into it at a suitable time. They are facing life bans if found guilty by the ICC.  I do not think that any thing is left to be proven now if not in the eyes of the UK law but in the eyes and hearts of cricket lovers and those who matter in the ICC.
The attitude and approach of PCB towards the mater has been predictably disappointing and absurd. They were not sure what to do and when to do. They are bent upon protecting the players as if nothing is happening as for as corruption in the game is concerned. the players did not categorically deny the charges there and then and now defending those through their lawyer. PCB boss Ijaz Butt went into hiding and only came out in front of the media when he landed in Lahore amid chants of  various kind from a hostile crowd and a dancing shoe which evaded him successfully just like common sense has evaded him ever since he had taken charge as PCB chairman.
Now what to do. If Pakistani players are proven guilty and punished would the matter end and game become clean? Never. Every one knows where the epicenter of match fixing lies. Mumbai and Delhi. The mafia there is unregulated because betting is illegal in India. IPL has been suspected of massively dipped in corruption and according to a report as many as twenty-nine players have been suspected of spot or match-fixing by authorities. But who will bell the cat. Who has the courage and will to enrage the hand who feeds them. ICC is dependent on money and money comes from India and India has shown time and again that they always protected their players. They have gone to extremes in that regard as umpires and match referees had to be kicked out to appease India. Unless you persuade India to act as a leader it is impossible to get rid of corruption in the game. In this scenario the sting operation to trap the Pakistani trio seems to be a drama to make money and malign Pakistan. Easy targets are being aimed at and shot at. Successfully.
Many questions arise. Why King commission reached at the brink but never entered the pool? Cronje was banned and others got away with lighter punishments. Similar thing happened in India and Pakistan. Why the Qayyum report not fully implemented? Why India stopped short of cracking down on the mafia? Why Warne and Mark Waugh were not grilled further? Is giving weather information a less crime than bowling no-balls? Are they meteorologists?
We the supporters of Pakistan cricket team are left in utter disbelief, shock and shame. We do not eat, do not sleep and do not go to work at times just to watch these greedy morons play in a hope that they will bring laurels to a country which is already in shambles due to war on terror, economic melt-down, extremism, lack of social justice and floods and is in the yoke of corrupt leadership. Alas these bloody cheats are eating the flesh of their country-men. They are cheating their nation, their people and their religion. They have gone from rags to riches but their greed is unending. They make a group of cheats with the help of disgraceful PCB and selectors and then they block the way of those who deserve to be selected or those who are clean and patriotic; one example is Younis Khan.
Only solution is for Pakistani cricket fans is to see a new set-up under a credible chairman and management which is determined to clean the game no matter what cost is to be paid.
But who shall do that. Patron-in-chief. Sorry we have to wait for the change at the very top.
Aah country is ravaged by floods and millions have been displaced and sons of soil are cheating. Don’t they have conscience? Don’t they have heart?