COMMENT – COME on conspiracy theorists, what are you waiting for? England lost to Ireland – a few days ago now – and you still haven’t claimed it. In 2007, the Pakistanis lost to the Irish and were buried in condemnation. Their coach, Bob Woolmer, died suddenly that night and it was thought by many to have been connected to a Pakistani dive. Let’s not be too hard, though, on those quick to accuse Pakistan but not other countries. We’re not the only guilty party in the business of double standards, suspicion, and accusation. Various Indian media outlets can’t jump quickly enough when there’s a hint of evidence that anyone representing Australia might be implicated in a fix.
The slow start made by Brad Haddin and Shane Watson against Zimbabwe got them into a right lather. Then there was Shane Warne’s tweet predicting a tie between India and England. Oh how they’d love to nail Warnie. I’m not sure if it’s the smoke from his bookmaker and drug blemishes that to some is suggestive of fire. Maybe it’s his other sinful ways, his perceived embodiment of Aussie-ness, or the simple fact that he was so damned good. From my perspective, the idea of Warne predicting a tie between India and England is about as suspicious as a little old lady informing a bank teller she’d like to withdraw some cash: there could be a gun in her handbag but it’s pretty unlikely.
This is, after all, the man who during the 1999 World Cup told his teammates not to leave the wicket if caught by Herschelle Gibbs as he might show off and drop the ball. As we know, the South African didn’t just drop Steve Waugh in precisely that manner, he dropped the World Cup. If nothing else Warne is instinctive and, it has to be said, his cricket instincts are pretty good. Of course Gibbs, whose captain at the time was the late, disgraced Hansie Cronje, was later found to be one of Cronje’s match-fixing accomplices and incurred a six-month ban. So, is it possible this famous dropped catch was no accident? While it occurred in a match against arch-rival, Australia, it was a game South Africa didn’t have to win to reach the semi-finals. The answer must be that it’s possible.
That’s a repulsive thought because not only did Australia go on to win the World Cup, but Waugh’s innings that day at Headingley was a never-to-be-forgotten masterpiece: close to the best innings I’ve witnessed. The notion that it may only have been possible due to an act of corruption is, within the context of cricket, too awful to contemplate. The point of the above is to illustrate that the scourge of match-fixing has already seriously damaged cricket. Not only that, it has damaged the nature of the relationships between some of the sport’s major competing nations. All are deeply suspicious of Pakistan; we in Australia assume a superior position, as revealed by Haddin’s response to media questioning over the match against Zimbabwe; sectional interests in India clearly believe Australia isn’t the cleanskin it purports to be, and so on.
Meanwhile, we don’t know about Australia’s win over Pakistan at the SCG 14 months ago, we don’t know about Ireland’s win over Pakistan and Woolmer’s death, we don’t know about Gibbs and that dropped catch, we don’t know how far Warne and Mark Waugh might have gone into the web of sin, we don’t know whether Cronje’s death was truly an accident. We don’t know what to believe any more. Yet the ICC has again allowed the World Cup to involve an endless litany of predictable games. While it might be argued Ireland’s win is the vindication of this policy, it’s not. Yes, it was an outcome to celebrate – in Melbourne as much as in Dublin – but it doesn’t justify the exposure of the World Cup to so much temptation and potential scuttlebutt.
This is a time when administrators must get it right. They must kill the invisible beast then convince the public of their success. Neither will be easily achieved. (The Age)
