Cricketing World

Pakistan have won the last T20 and avoided a clean sweep in NZ. They also ended the 6 match losing streak in T20s. And this time the Palak Paneer guy came good again with allround effort.

I am bit skeptical of planning PCB had for the team in the run up to the World Cup. 3 T20s and 2 tests in addition to 6 ODIs. Whats the meaning of 3 T20s? What purpose does it serve?

By the way they are the only team who have to give the 30 names for WC provisional squad. And they are hung up as Kakkumal, Shoaib Mirza and Danis Kaneria meet PCB’s “integrity committee to decide over their future in cricket. Now what happens and what would happen is anybody’s guess in Pak cricket.

Zim and BD are done playing their last games before the world cup and they sit idle for the next 43 days in the run up to the World Cup.

And perhaps SL and WI too.

SL are still a “formidable” side going to World Cup. I dont believe this. They are always formidable, they are always romantic side, they are fairy tale and what not. They have not played any serious cricket for over a month since that dubious and fart win over Aus in ODI series in Aus.  Yet they are formidable. For a change you have not heard from Sanga in long time. So have I. And thats good.

The rest of cricketing fraternity is busy playing Tests or ODI cricket.

Australia are moaning about Ashes loss and how useless Ponting is now. England have everything revolving around Ashes and they dont seem to think beyond Ashes. Perhaps they should stop playing cricket in between Ashes series.  Yet they want to be # 1. And Collingwood could be on his way out from Tests at least.

Clarke is the captain for the Sydney test and most probably for long term too. He is having a rut in the batting department and that has invited a lot of doubts over his choice of captaincy.

The Australian batting is no more formidable as it used to over  2 years before.

Katich or Hughes do not inspire confidence. Watson makes 50 but does not convert 100s. Ponting stopped making 100s since long time. Hussey is the only batsman, Clarke is metrofexual and Steven Smith as # 6 is fart.

Compare that to the likes of Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Gilchrist as good as 2007.  More than the batters they are missing Shane Warne, Gillespie and of course Glenn McGraw (Bill Lawry style).

Wont be a surprise if they lose the world cup in India next year.

Possible semi finalists:

1. India.

2. England

3. South Africa

4. Australia / Pakistan if neither of this teams implode or explode.

1 more day of 2010 and I would finish off 4th year of cricket blogging starting 2007.  Pretty good journey from a world cup to world cup.

IPL blame game has started

The PCB had been quite since long time. Since long time they had been doing nothing that would evoke laughters. And now they have done it. 

The typical blame game has started with PCB blaming India on lack of Pakistanis in the IPL auction to be followed next January.

Turmoil

Turmoil in world cricket.

PCB as usual. They celebrate the news that Oval ODI was not fixed. What a joke.  Ijazie should really dress himself as a joker everyday to the work and press conferences.

Kiwis are unexpectedly reeling under a 0-4 whitewash. Oceanic cricket is in turmoil. Aussies lost 0-2, Kiwis 0-4.

Deshis are on an unexpected high, thanks to Siddons and Shakib. Great stuff for them. Only if they maintain their consistency and hunt down Sri Lanka every time they play. They would do a great service to the cricket world.

India has its own demons of ODI cricket where the selectors are hell bent to rest players at a very wrong junction of time. India are now just 12 ODIs away from the opening game against BD in the world cup and they have only 10 ODIs to play with the core group of players for the world cup. How many of the core players would actually play those 10 ODIs is still a question given that the selection committee is a buffon and a basket  case.

West Indies have a new captain and a vice captain. Enough said on them.

England are all about Ashes and they are not giving a damn to the world cup. They wont win it anyways.

Australia has its own set of problems with the seniors coming floppers in the Tests and the ODIs being only strong point for them at the time.

Entropy level right now in the world cricket is high and the men in focus are usual jokers and clowns in PCB.

Spot Fixing Sol

The best way to deal with the ongoing spot fixing saga in Pakistan would be to ban Pakistan of any cricket activities till the Prez in that country replaces Ijaz Butt as PCB head.  Till Butt is PCB head, the cricket in that country would continue to see more dark days like Sunday and more idiotic statements would coming out of their closet. Every tour Pak would make would focus on their off the field activities  than their on field activities.

It would also be futile to expect that the real ringleaders in the spot fixing saga would ever come out. The bans, fines and all such cleansing activities would continue despite all high talk from ICC and ECB.

ECB has been equal measure culprit as PCB. They have unrelenting greed for money as do Pak cricketers caught up in the spot fixing controversy. As soon as the controversy broke out, the tour should have been cancelled, but ECB continued playing the ball game on the name of cricket and its integrity. Its the same ECB who had allowed US fraudster Alan Stanford to land on so called home of cricket with shameless treasues of money and have English players wives sit on his lap in that farce called Stanford T20. It also hoped it would be a befitting reply to IPL.

ECB bungled step after step and continued to make huge statements. That its own team could not get past a team caught up in massive controversy shows how good it is for Ashes or the world cup to follow.  Their record in India over last 2 ODI series says it all how good they would be to pose up a challenge to the contenders — Australia and South Africa.

Pakistan cricketers, lest they dont do a soul searching and overcome their pitfalls, such controversies would continue to happen. And no Ijaz or Giles or Zarda would be able to clean it, lest they themselves make them strong in character to not fall for the crooks and suspicious characters on and off the tour. If they are able to do so in coming years the game would take a huge step to get itself clean of the so called danger of omittence.

 

Mr and Mrs ten percent

ICC has sent notice to Kamran Akamal indicating he is under scanner for his suspicious activities all this year for Australian tour, England tour and Asia Cup activities.  TOI reports that he had been notified before the Lord’s test too and he had replied to the notice. But the notice reply were found to be ridiculous and so he was charged once again.

This time the PCB was ignored. The notice was sent directly to the rogue keeper.

PCB chief returned to his homeland and received jeers. Still unfazed he declared he wont have any investigation as ICC and Scotland Yard investigation are already on. Actually he meant this

We are incompetent, impotent and idiots. If we launch any investigations then all we are going to do is say “Where is the proof” ? If proofs are unearthed we would ban and fine the players. And then have them submit the appeals and finally revoke the bans and fines. We would turn a blind eye to what the players do while on the tour, whom they meet, how much cash they make, whether they play cricket or do anything beyond that. We are incompetent, impotent.”

So in the end its back to the square one. Laughing stock. Amazingly, still nothing would happen. Butt, the bil of Pak defence minister shall continue to be  the pCB chief and continue to say “Where is the proof” and “Innocent until proved guilty”. He would be “impotent until proved potent”.

If Akamal is charged then why is he playing ?

A search for Ijaz Butt on twitter yields some hillarious tweets even from his own countrymen like “trading off Ijaz Butt” and stuff like that.

Irony is that who is going to kick him out ? The patron ? Mr 10 % :D. Who knows he might be getting some slice of the spot fixing payment from the bookies !! And Ijaz Butt would be getting his share too. Probably that explains the reason why this two buffoons are still in place.

ICC suspends Pakistan captain, premier fast bowler and Veena Malik’s ex bf

Start of the day : PCB withdraws  the 3 players on grounds of mental torture from media, bloggers, ex-cricketers and fans. Pakistan envoy to Britain confirms this proving that he is cousin of Ijaz Butt in terms of mental health and wisdom.

Later in the day : ICC suspends 3 players on grounds of corruption under ACSU.

Welcome step.  Some action had to be taken and ICC was the only one who could have taken this action given how impotent and inept PCB is.

What happens to Kamran  Akamal ? He was implicated too right ? Did Shahid Afridi save his ass as Akamal constantly rants Shahid Bhai Shahid Bhai ?

By the way collage below (courtesy : ndtv.com and mid-day.com) should be good enough to nail Salman Butt and Kamran Akamal.  A fitting reply to those who are asking for proofs. Nothing can get bigger than this pictures and the video footage shown by NOTW.

Spot Fixing Stake Holders

Trying to draw a picture who’s on what side of the spot fixing scandal. We’ve had truckload of tweets on the spot fixing stuff, lot of media articles across cricketing nations and conspiracy theories. A lot of turning blind eye stuff, demanding of proofs when they are damning present in the video, linkage to RAW, linkage to India, linkage to corruption within that country, conspiracy from ICC chief and what not.

Backers and Movers

*

Geoff Lawson

*

Rameez Raza

*

Michael Atherton

*

Ijaz Butt

*

Shahid Afridi

*

Mohd Ijaz

*

Salman Butt

*

Yawar Saeed

*

Few Pakistani bloggers

*

Daily Mail

Against

* Indian bloggers

* Indian tweeters

* Indian media

* England team

* English media

* Imran Khan

* Sarfaraz Nawaz

* Javed Miandad

* Few Pak bloggers

* Australian team like Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson, N Hauritz

* Micahel Vaughan

There have been few crazy mongers who have gone onto blame Indian establishment for the spot fixing stuff :

* Daily mail linking RAW, ICC, Indian commision (in UK) and BCCI to ruin Aamer’s career. I was typing character, thanks to Sangakara overdose.

* Veena Malik, their Rakhi Sawant who’s blamed entire Pak cricketing fraternity involvement in match fixing.

* Ijaz Butt who still asks “Whers the proof. Show me the proof.”

* Mr 10 % who’s asked for interim report from Ijaz Butt.

* Gilani who feels Pak head is down in shame

* Zakhrani and Malik who change their views every single day.

* Haroon Lorgat who feels ACSU is doing good job but it is a powerless and toothless body.

* ICC chief Sharad Pawar who himself is in a mess pledges no action.

The win-win situation to deal with this spot fixing stuff could have been

“Temporarily suspend the named 3/4 players till investigations of Scotland yard are done and some premises either way are established. The tour could have gone ahead.”

This also would have set some credibility on PCB’s part showing that they were keen to get this mess out of their system. Albeit it was never to happen and there has been same predictable reaction to this entire episode. Those 3 players would still go on to play the ODIs and as Pak would lose 0-5 it would be very difficult to tell which ones were a genuine losses and which ones were spot fixed.

PCB wont take any action on Cheaters

ECB has said its players are reluctant to take on a team which has spot fixer tainted players in the ODIs and T20s.

Mr Sharad Pawar has said ICC wont step in till the investigations are done. That is, the 4 players would continue playing T20s and ODIs leading to more fixing.

The Buffoon at PCB has said

“This is only an allegation. There is still no charge or proof on that account. So at this stage there will be no action taken”

As expected Buffoon turns his eye off on the erring players. There are reports in ToI which suggest that the PCB has a nexus with the bookies responsible for the spot fixing. So its obvious the head of PCB wont act on the beneficiaries of the booking gate.

ICC now signalling that it may suspend 4 players (CNN-IBN).

As of now the fact is the 4 suspended players would continue playing and none of ICC, PCB would act on the players.

Another indication that the spot fixing stuff would be rubbed under carpet.

Spot Fixing would be buried under carpet

The Pak squad has left for Taunton amidst the slogan of thieves. And Majeed Mazhar has been released on bail too. ICC is dysfunctional, PCB is hopeless.

It gives a feeling that this episode is also going to be pushed inside carpet and the named culprits are going to continue in the way previous ones have done over decade and half.

Worst thing is that this episode has come right around the world cup and ideally the ICC should act stern to fix the problem of fixing for good.

Thats a realm of speculation and very unlikely it would happen. The worst thing is the 4 cheats would still be playing the T20s and the ODIs. Best thing could have been suspend the 4 players at least till the allegations are proved / invalidated. 

Pakistan cricket needs to be isolated !!

For the first 2 or 3 days of Lord’s Test it seemed that Pakistan are back to being a decent Test team until Broad and Trott had the record shattering 332 run partnership for 8th wicket.

And then the hell broke loose.

Spot fixing allegations came out in open after News of the World broke the story how Mazhar  Majeed paid the talents of Pakistan cricket to ball no-balls during the ongoing Lord’s Test.

Since then the world of cricket has just been flooded with the shock and awe.

Its nothing new on the Pakistan’s part to be coping up with this allegations. They have had a history of such misdeeds and the current cricketers have illustrious seniors to look up for spot fixing and stuff like ball tampering, match fixing. Many of them are coaches now, have gone on to become highest ODI wicket takers and what not.

Salman Butt, Aamer, Drug Peddler Asif and ugly slut Kamran Akamal are the players indicated in this spot fixing stuff.

The English media is overboard with how Test cricket was killed at the home of cricket, the Pakistani media is yet to come to the terms with the reality. Poor they, they have had to cover a lot of such stuff in last 3 years. Mush, 10 %, Buttology, MoYos, Younises, Afridis, Butt again, Akamal muck,  spot fixing, T-e-Ts, floods, war against homegrown terror and what not.

PakPassion.net had glorified the Mazeed brothers having a dedicated section on the website named as “Agents Corner”. The Pakistani bloggers are quiet in the shock. Feel for them. Why do they even follow Pakistani cricket ?

As long as Pakistan is going to play cricket, this dirt and muck is going to be around. No matter how strong we have units like ICC ACU, Qayyums and stuff, the crooks of Pakistan all round the world are going to lure the poor Pakistani players who when debut do not even have manners (accent) or money to be correct on foreign tours. So its easy for them to be lured to petty temptations and sell their integrity for some pounds or dollars or Pakistani rupees.

When the country itself is deep in immorality of terror, home grown insurgency, floods and anti-world mindset its futile to expect this young cricketers to have any kind of integrity and morality.  And when the Ijaz Butts rule the PCB and act in a weird way to ban, appeal and overturn, its futile or better to not expect the PCB or Mr 10 % to act on the latest dirt from Pakistani cricket closet.

Best way would be to ban Pakistan from playing all forms of cricket till their administration comes clean on the laundering,  cheating and fixing. Worse even do not invite the cheats from Pakistan to play anywhere in the world for they would bring a lot of unwanted publicity and attention where they go. Let their team play within their own country.

Cricket wont die due to a misgiving from a rogue country. T20s wont die, Tests and ODIs wont die. Normal business shall resume. When its a normal of a Pakistani cricket to be corrupt then why pretend to be shocked and write obituaries for cricket when its in a good state though bruised a little bit. Just a bit.

The ODI series and the T20s to follow in England now become irrelevant and we should get our popcorn and coke to watch out the theaterical drama unfold in Pakistani cricket circles with Ijaz Butt being the old hero in centerstage. Just hoping that ICC would act strong this time to kill the virus of fixing forever and come too hard on the erring players, administrators and bookies.

Lights camera Action!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!