Cricket's just not cricket (and never has been) The Times

From the Times, May 24 2001

The allegations of corruption and match-fixing are as old as the game Ah, those lost days of innocence.
Seventy years ago, Lord Harris, after a lifetime spent playing cricket, wrote a letter to The Times outlining his thoughts on the game: "You do well to love it," he said, "for it is more free from anything sordid, anything dishonourable than any game in the world. To play it keenly, honourably, generously, self-sacrificingly is a moral lesson itself, and the classroom is God's air and sunshine."
He was of course eighty at the time, which may explain the hyperbole. But not many readers then would have challenged the sentiment.
Had he been able to read yesterday's report on betting in cricket, Lord Harris might have felt the need to amend his letter, perhaps by adding a suitable rider: "Unless, that is, you have a couple of grand on an accumulator bet which wagers that the captain of the away side will lose the toss, be put in to bat, declare at 151 exactly, bowl nine no-balls within the first 20 overs, and place a fielder at wide silly mid-on, a position never before adopted by his side."
Anyone still clinging to the idea that cricket is a game for gentlemen, should read Sir Paul Condon's report in full. They will not find it too difficult since it is written in a style reminiscent of a Daily Mirror sub-editor, circa 1950: "A Climate of Silence, Apathy, Ignorance and Fear" reads one heading. "Corrupt practices and deliberate under-performance have permeated all aspects of the game," says another. Allegations of match-fixing are "only the tip of an iceberg". There has been "a conspiracy of silence". "Corruption is caused by human weakness, greed and opportunity." And the terrible warning: "This report will make disturbing reading for all those who love and follow the game of cricket." In fact it never quite succeeds in doing so. Despite the lurid prose and fantastical allegations of murder, kidnapping, and threats of violence, the report fails to live up to the billing.
Many of the examples which Sir Paul quotes are second-hand; considering it is written by a senior policeman, there is a severe lack of first-hand investigative evidence; and although the report claims that corruption in cricket began in England, the ferociously complicated business of actually fixing a match seems to be confined to one rather undramatic example - the Essex versus Lancashire game of 1991, when the two sides are said to have colluded on the outcome so that they could share two titles between them. There follows a long list of international matches, where illegal betting is said to have taken place, but it contains the rather weak caveat that "inclusion on this list does not necessarily indicate that a match was fixed".
The infamous payments made to Mark Waugh and Shane Warne seem to have been made in return for some rather anodyne information about the state of the pitch, which could presumably have been acquired for free by watching Geoffrey Boycott in his Panama hat on television, sticking a penknife into the grass.
Of course, it is worrying to learn that first-class cricketers may have "under-performed" in return for money, but seeing what some England players have been capable of doing without the bribe, even that information comes across as something less than scandalous. What is probably worse is the banality of small sums of money handed over in return for the pathetic juggling of statistics - betting that a player would be out on a particular score; that the number of wides in an innings would go into double figures, or that a captain would declare as soon as his side had reached a specific total. That does indeed undermine the whole beauty of cricket, which is its startling unpredictability.
Perhaps, however, the real reason we are less than overwhelmed by Sir Paul's revelations is the fact that the gentlemanly nature of cricket has always been a bit of a fiction. Even W. G. Grace, who was once described by Neville Cardus as "The game's presiding genius . . . gave his heart and soul to cricket," did so at a price. The notice stuck up at the gate when he was taking part in a game read: "Entrance one shilling, or two shillings if Dr Grace is playing." And when, famously, he was given out in an exhibition match, he stood his ground, saying: "The crowd has paid to see me bat, not you umpire."
People have been shocked about the supposed decline of cricket for as long as it has been played. From the Bodyline Series of 1933 to the Pakistan ball-tampering incident of 1992, cricketing scandals have always been vested with an extra ingredient of shock and horror, because cricket is considered not so much a game, more a metaphor for life. Just as Americans were stunned to learn in 1919 that the World Series game between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds had been fixed, so we like to pretend that cheating in cricket is a crime against humanity.
The burden cricket carries is its iconic status. It stands for the central virtues of Englishness - sportsmanship, civilised behaviour, fair play, and a decent pair of flannels. When these are challenged, it is as if an assault were being launched on morality itself. When Kerry Packer brought big money into the game in the 1970s and dressed his cricketers in reds and yellow, it was as if someone had given a two-fingered salute during the national anthem. When Australians started "sledging" their opponents, we called it the death of manners.
And when we learn that cricketers have been taking bribes to fix a game, we sigh and shrug, and say: "I told you so. It all goes back to Brisbane in 1946 when Bradman refused to walk . . ."