Yes, there should be a rigorous investigation. And yes, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh took bungs from Joe the Bookieman. But does anyone really believe Australian players are the "biggest" fixers?
Australians were "biggest" fixers: agent
A cricket agent accused of taking bribes to fix matches claimed that Australian players were "the biggest" when it came to rigging games, a London court heard on Monday.
Majeed alleged that Australian players would fix "brackets", a set period of a match on which punters bet, for example, how many runs will be scored.
"The Australians, they are the biggest. They have 10 brackets a game," he said in the tape played to the court.
Sounds more like Mazhar Majeed was on the sell, spruiking to a potential, ahem, stakeholder that he could get any player:
The jury was played covert recordings of meetings between the London-based agent and former News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood, who was posing as a rich Indian businessman seeking major international players for the tournament.
Apropos:
Majeed boasted that he knew Hollywood star Brad Pitt and tennis ace Roger Federer "very well" and could arrange for them to promote a proposed cricket tournament in the United Arab Emirates, the court heard.
In theory this shouldn't be hard to test, statistically. Teams dogging brackets will concede more runs in the 9th/10th over; teams fixing will get runout more; have a wider variation of strike-rates; probably get bowled more often; lose more games than is statistically likely.
In earlier reports Majeed had mentioned a specific game as fixed. The scoreboard is pretty damning, numerous suicidal runouts, poor shot selection, very slow strike-rates bar Afridi, and a 10 run, 10th over to push Sri Lanka over 50.
Posted by: Russ | Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 12:02 PM
They were not accused of rigging matches merely doing what the pakis did.
bowling no-balls in certain overs , not scoring runs in certain overs etc.
Posted by: The Don has risen | Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 01:42 PM
Donnie, pretty sure we're onto that.
Posted by: Tony | Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 10:34 PM
Rigging games take the fun out of things. The players aren't the only ones let down when this happens; the general public is disappointed too.
Posted by: fall protection | Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 02:46 PM