The ball that uncovered cricket’s dirty secret
Dylan Cleaver counts down the 10 biggest sports stories of the decade. Today — numbers 5 and 6.
6
It’s Just Not Cricket
When the ultra-talented leftarm paceman Mohammad Amir stepped over the frontfoot line with the first ball of the third over of the fourth test between Pakistan and England at Lord’s in 2010, it could easily have been passed off as an innocent mistake by an inexperienced bowler.
Others knew better, though. Others knew this was a carefully scripted plot designed to enrich corrupt bookmakers and betting syndicates.
More specifically, senior staff at the News of the World knew because they had constructed a sting that was going to blow the lid off one of the stories of the decade and cricket’s worst-kept secret: that fixing was rife and it reached all the way up to the game’s pinnacle matches.
A reporter posing as a bookie had paid middle man Mazher Majeed £150,000 to arrange spot-fixes, including no-balls by Pakistan’s seambowling Mohammads, Amir and Asif. He had videotaped the exchange, including the prescription of when the no-balls would be bowled and the handing over of cash.
It was explicit and it was unambiguous: on the instruction of captain Salman Butt, Majeed said, the two bowlers would do as told. And they did.
Most cricket insiders knew this was happening. It was the sport’s dirty not-so-secret and had been around in earnest since the 1970s, according to the Condon Report.
Nobody wanted to tackle it, however, because it meant admitting that what we were seeing wasn’t real. Cricket’s credibility stood on the precipice and the International Cricket Council was in a bind.
The sport was financed off the back of broadcasters who wanted to
The Blade Runner was a story made for Hollywood. His story will still be made into a movie, but one without a happy ending.
tap into India’s massive market. Who would pay big money for rights to broadcast something that might not be real? Who would pay to watch a sham?
Cricket entered a kind of netherworld where every great performance was greeted with suspicion, particularly when it came to an Asian side (though Pakistan were considered the worst perpetrators, fixing allegations have tainted most if not all countries at some point).
The ICC opted for a halfway-house solution where they funded an anticorruption unit that didn’t have any jurisdictional teeth, and relied on police in individual countries to prosecute. It rarely worked.
Instead the biggest “catch” was made by a now-defunct newspaper with a very big budget.
The reason this scandal rocked cricket where others had slid by was the fact that Amir was just 18 and considered the most promising bowler on the planet. That he could be so easily manipulated into cheating by his captain Salman Butt showed how dirty the game had become.
(It should be noted that not everybody believed Amir was the guileless innocent he was portrayed to be.)
“The coercion from Salman Butt was cruel,” respected commentator Mark Nicholas would tell ESPN. “To take someone so young and gifted out of his comfort zone, with all the threat and fear that comes with that crazy world of illegal sports betting, and offer him money to get to a better [financial] place, to mislead him, was to drown him really.”
The trio paid a heavy price. They were arrested and charged by Scotland Yard, convicted by the Southwark Crown Court and sentenced to prison, where they spent between six and seven months. Majeed went down for two years and eight months.
Pakistan Cricket handed down lenient five-year bans, although they effectively ended the international careers of Asif and Butt.
“That was something that hurt us for a long, long time,” said Misbah-ulHaq, a statesmanlike former captain who has been credited with restoring honour to Pakistan cricket.
Amir came back to international cricket in 2016, a move that was not universally popular.
Spot-fixing didn’t end with the Pakistan disgrace.
We’ve had our own dramas here, with former Black Cap Lou Vincent serving 11 lifetime bans for his role in the nefarious practice. What it did was throw such a harsh spotlight on cheating that it made life tougher for the corrupt at the top level.
The proliferation of Twenty20 leagues around the world — that’s a different story.
5
Oscar’s Murderous Rage The story of Oscar Pistorius was, for many, also the story of democratic South Africa: a story of hope.
The Blade Runner was a story made for Hollywood: the kid from Jo’burg who had his feet amputated due to a congenital defect and became the first disabled athlete to win a medal on the track at the world championships. His story will still be made into a movie, but one without a happy ending.
In February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. That much was never in doubt.
In a society where gun violence was rife and the population often had just cause to defend itself, it was the intent that was key.
Pistorius insisted he had mistaken Steenkamp, a high-profile model, for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. At trial, his defence appeared flimsy and came under sustained attack from theatrical prosecutor Gerrie Nel.
There was general surprise when he was cleared of murder and instead convicted of the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
He received a five-year prison sentence and was released under house arrest in 2015. Then things got really interesting.
The Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius’ sentence to six years, which was in turn appealed and subsequently doubled to 13 years and five months.
Justice was finally seen to be served — Pistorius is in jail now and will be for a long time — but to call it a win would be missing the point.
The case both gripped and horrified those in his homeland and beyond. There to witness it first hand was journalist Eduan Roos.
“For South Africans across creeds and races, Pistorius represented the limitless possibility of the Rainbow Nation. After all, if someone with no lower legs could compete with — and trump — able-bodied athletes, then surely a country still reeling from the human rights atrocities of the past could assert itself on the global stage,” Roos said.
“When news broke on Valentine’s Day morning that Pistorius had been taken into custody following the killing of Steenkamp, the nation’s mood could be best described as one of collective disbelief.”
And shame.
“The story of Oscar Pistorius instead became become reflective of the worst of the ‘new’ South African society,” Roos says.
“It was a society held back by appalling disregard for human life and the profusion of violence against women.”