A week on the web: Cricket spot-fixing
Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, and agent Mazhar Majeed, were all jailed this week for their part in the spot-fixing scandal. How did the web react? We had a look so you don’t have to
#spotfixing Players in stunned silence. They collect their bags, and are 'taken down' to the holding cells, then Wandsworth Prison...- That was how freelance cricket writer Richard DJ Edwards reported on the denouement of the cricket spot-fixing trial involving Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, and Butt’s agent Mazhar Majeed.
The cricket commentariat quickly went into overdrive on Twitter. The BBC’s Jonathan Agnew had this to say: - Telegraph columnist and broadcaster Simon Hughes, better known as the ‘cricket analyst’ (he’s even got his own iPhone app you know), took issue with that view - and was not alone.
They committed a crime and the punishment should fit the crime. This, in my opinion, does not fit the crime. #spotfixing- Guardian sports writer Barney Ronay hurled down a hat-trick of thoughtful tweets on that subject, using the notorious ‘rebel’ England tour of 1990 to South Africa to provide some context.
- So what happens next? Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan hopes the International Cricket Council will be spurred into action.
- He wasn’t alone in hoping that.
A sad day for Cricket with 3 players rightly in jail for #spotfixing maybe some good can come of it by shaking the ICC into permanent action- Vaughan himself (along with many others) was more than a tad sceptical about the likelihood of that happening.
Other than ruining the careers of the trio, anyone who thinks this will eradicate corruption from the sport is too naive! #spotfixing- One reason for the scepticism is the ICC itself, which had done nothing to expose the scam in the first place. That honour fell to the News of the World and in particular investigative reporter Mazhar Mahmood – proof that, on a good day, the News International tabloid broke serious public interest stories. Sometimes the ends do justify the means.
Big heads up for the team at the now defunct News of the World, without whom these cheating cricketers would still be #spotfixing #cricket- While the ‘fake sheikh’ got the plaudits, Amir got most of the sympathy going, mainly because of his age and humble background.
- Michael Holding certainly felt sorry for him when suspicions were first aroused. This is a clip of the great West Indian fast bowler talking with David Gower and Nasser Hussein. It reveals a softer side of a man once known as ‘whispering death’.
