7 – 0 – 60 – 0
Not the most impressive bowling
figures in history, but not terrible for a first outing in pro40 cricket. In
fact so uninteresting that it took me quite a while to find them anywhere on
the internet. However, strangely these figures are two runs short of what the
bowler wanted to achieve. Lurking in that 60 runs is a first over that went for
10 when it should have gone for 12. These are of course Mervyn Westfield’s
figures from 5th September 2009, the day he was supposed to give
away 12 runs in his first over in exchange for £6000, he didn’t, simply because
he couldn’t. Not in a moral sense – I presume once you’ve accepted money off an
illegal bookie chances are you would intend to go through with it – but just
because it’s almost impossible for one person to govern for certain what
happens on a cricket pitch.
Today Westfield has been handed a
four month sentence, which in all likelihood he will only serve two months of
in prison. Two months for – ignoring the cricket side for now – attempting to
defraud bookies, lying to the police and whatever else it was he was charged
with. Amir and Asif’s sentences now look positively harsh in the light of
Westfield’s, the only real differences being the amount of money paid and the
size of the match. Admittedly it ought to carry a heavier sentence for cheating
bookmakers in a game with more money resting on it, however couple in the lack
of co-operation with the police and the laughably late attempt at a plea
bargain that Westfield aimed for, surely the sentences should at least be
similar? I would like to point out that I know very little about legal stuff
that doesn’t concern my everyday life, so this is purely just my surmising.
However, the most interesting –
and possibly least surprising – element of today is that Mervyn Westfield named
Danish Kaneria, at the time of the match in question a very senior player in
the side who has since retired, as the one who approached him with the
spot-fixing proposition. An accusation which in sentencing Westfield, Judge
Anthony Morris alluded to in such a way as to suggest he wishes to see the
former Pakistan player re-arrested. This is improbable, because if Essex police
couldn’t find enough evidence the first time to make a charge stick it’s
unlikely they will do so at a second attempt, but it should be very intriguing
to see how this develops as the case is apparently still under review.
But back to the cricket.
Personally, I don’t see this as either good or bad for our game, its nothing
really, a trial that concerns a nothing player and tars one who has since
retired doesn’t help the game in any way but it certainly doesn’t tell us
something we didn’t already know. Spot-fixing exists, and that is what confuses
me, how do corrupt bookies make any money off this practice? In every
Spot-fixing case I have ever heard of (other than the Pakistan trio) the
players failed to fulfil what they had promised the bookmakers, and there is
one simple reason for this: Cricket is completely unpredictable. It is a game
with millions of variables, an aspect that admittedly makes it very interesting
to gamble on and can therefore make bookies a lot of money, but surely also
makes it nigh on impossible to control. Unfortunately we have seen recently
that these bookies can get a little greedy and attempt to swindle their punters
and the game itself by trying to gain control over these little variables with
these cash incentives and instructions to players to fix tiny parts of the game
that supposedly no one would notice. Such as a man making his pro40 debut
getting a little bit of tap in his first over, it’s completely expected.
However, getting the number of runs that someone gives away exactly right would
surely require more than just the bowler to be crooked, it would need at least
one batter, the captain of the fielding side and, in all probability, the
standing umpire to give, or not give, a contentious wide/no ball just to make
sure. A task that is surely impossible to achieve. Fixing things such as when a
no ball comes would arguably be much simpler to achieve as it only requires the
bowlers involvement, however, as we saw at the oval it is slightly obvious when
a bowler is trying to bowl a no ball. In fact of all the spot fixing rumours I
have heard tell of, it is only things like whether a certain player will be
wearing shades or not that are easy to fix and easy to get away with. And in
all honesty does stuff like that really bring the game into disrepute? And the
only bookies it is likely to damage are the insane ‘bet on anything’ illegal
ones who no one is likely to care about if they get defrauded anyway. Spot
fixing is clearly a part of our game and will probably always be a part of it
but my personal view is that if the practice is to continue it will surely be
in areas that will in fact not affect the actual game or result at all, at
least that’s my hope and I’m going to keep telling myself that.
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