"It's Just Not Cricket": The Sports Betting Scandal Engulfing England and Pakistan (Haddigan)

Lee Haddigan writes for EA:

On Monday the English cricket team played Pakistan in a one-day international at Lords, the spiritual home of the game. Not all was gentlemanly in the sport of gentlemen, however: a verbal and physical scuffle was sparked when an England player allegedly asked a Pakistani opponent how much he hoped to make from illegal betting on the game.

The incident escalated an already-tense situation. Three Pakistani players had been withdrawn from the tour of England after claims that "no-balls" had been bowled to pay off on large "spot bets". The chairman of Pakistan cricket subsequently claimed that English players had deliberately lost a game, escalating a scandal over match-fixing that threatens to tarnish the sport.

The furour occurred as visitors to Lords were enjoying the most comprehensive exhibition detailing the links between cricket and its distant American relative, baseball. Swinging Away: How Baseball and Cricket Connect opened in May and closes in December when it moves to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in New York for a six-month stay.

Baseball in America has had its betting scandals. The Chicago Black Sox team of 1919, who threw a World Series, and the outfielder Pete Rose, barred from the Hall of Fame for wagering on the results of games, are the most famous examples. But these isolated incidents of wrongdoing pale in comparison when compared to the corruption that appears endemic in cricket.

For those new to the world of illegal betting in the sport, here's a quick guide: 

There are two methods of manipulating a game to gain a profit. The first, match-fixing, is largely self-explanatory. Players are paid to under-perform so their side loses the game.

Lose, becuase it is almost impossible to fix a game so that your team wins. It just can’t be done, unless of course the other team is in on the fix. However, getting out when batting, conceding many runs when bowling (or, in baseball, pitching), or deliberately dropping a catch when fielding is an easy way to influence the outcome of a game. Errors and bad days happen for the best of players, and it is almost impossible, without strict scrutiny of betting patterns or admissions of guilt, to prove the failures were deliberate.

The most famous example of match fixing occurred in 2000 when Hansie Cronje, the captain of South Africa, made decisions that helped England win the game. Concerns over the unusual result and similar incidents in other games led to an investigation that revealed that Cronje, and other cricketers worldwide, had been involved in plots to fix results.

The current scandal, however, centres on accusations of spot fixing. Here gamblers bet on the outcome of a small, predetermined part of the game. In the England-Pakistan series, Pakistani bowlers agreed to bowl a faulty delivery --- a "no ball", similar to baseball's "wild pitch" --- at a specific moment in the game. 

In Asia, where betting occurs on the outcome of every ball that is bowled, a gamblerwho is in on the fix simply places a bet predicting that the next delivery will be a no-ball. No-balls are common enough not to bring suspicion, but infrequently enough that a successful bet on one brings a payoff on high odds. In the England-Pakistan case, there would have been no suspicion of any improper behaviour, had it not been for a "sting" by a British newspaper which allegedly recorded the Pakistani cricketers agreeing to take a payment for the no-balls.

These new accusations tarnishing the game are taking place against a backdrop of increased worldwide interest in the sport. A new, 3 1/2-hour version of the game was introduced a few years ago to attract viewers who could not get involved in the five-day (yes, American readers, five days) version of the sport. "20/20" cricket has attracted global interest, especially in India, and made multi-millionaires of the stars.

To purists the game is an abomination --- imagine Major League baseballers playing a game of T-ball --- but it brought in more countries and attracted bigger audiences to the cricket grounds. At the recent 20/20 World Cup in the West Indies, a team from Afghanistan took part amongst the top 12 sides in the world. Although the Afghan team lost heavily, their appearance warmed the hearts of cricket-lovers around the globe.

Forced to play their home games in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, the Afghanistan team have risen from the bottom of the rankings through hard work and enthusiasm. The team comprises a number of refugees who grew up playing cricket in Pakistan during the Soviet invasion of their country and who returned to Afghanistan to build an international reputation for their side. Until recently, they were asking for money at international tournaments to buy food. They were so determined to succeed that the Taliban lifted a ban on the game, ostensibly because it has enough breaks in play to allow participants to perform ritual prayers. 

These achievements are under threat --- indeed the future of the game is in question --- because of these latest allegations. Cricket is proud to advance the idea that it is a game of gentlemen and now gentlewomen that honours the ethos of honesty and fair play. "It’s just not cricket" is an established expression that an action has gone beyond the acceptable.

Perhaps that myth of cricket as a definition of all that is civilised in society faded a long time ago. But as more and more of the British public whether involvement in the Afghanistan war has been worthwhile, and indeed whether they should bother giving money to flood victims in a far-away place like Pakistan, one wonders if "England", which defeated Pakistan last night to win the one-day series by three matches to two, has lost a valuable sporting image once and for all.