Stani Army

Ijaz Butt multi-tasks: On the phone and reading the newspaper upside down at the same time. Isn't Pakistan cricket lucky?!

Ijaz Butt’s outburst was a real chance for the ECB and ICC to do something for Pakistan cricket in helping to remove Butt from his position as captain of the Pakistan ship. But a simple apology from Butt means that all is well and good once again. For the ECB, ICC and Ijaz Butt, it is at least, but under Butt’s command the Pakistan ship continues to drift into rough seas towards rocky shores.

I was hoping that Butt would be stubborn as usual and refuse to apologise, forcing the ECB to take him to court, and the ICC to suspend him. But deep down there was a feeling that he would retract his comments with a grovelling apology in a desperate attempt to hold onto his position. Self-preservation has always been Ijaz Butt’s main goal.

The ICC, it is believed, were ready to suspend Butt yet preferred to give him time to retract his comments and issue an apology. The head of each ICC member board automatically becomes an ICC Director, and it is from this role that the ICC could have suspended Butt. Yet instead of getting their hands dirty, they waited, as they love to do, rather than take the lead as the game’s governing body and take the required action against a guy that cricket does not need.

The ECB had taken their position very early in threatening legal action unless Butt apologised. I get the feeling that any legal battle may have overlapped their beloved up and coming Ashes series as court cases are generally long and drawn out, and England did not want to be dragged into such a distraction. Nevertheless, the allegations were grave and I’m surprised the ECB has settled for a simple apology.

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The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that it will be taking legal action against the ICC and the British tabloid paper the Sun after they made public allegations that Pakistan had taken money to fix their scoring pattern in the third ODI at the Oval.

A PCB statement read: “The PCB and the Pakistan players completely reject the allegations made by the Sun newspaper and the ICC yesterday about the Pakistan team’s conduct in the 3rd Nat West ODI at The Brit Insurance Oval.

“The allegation’s were wholly irresponsible and completely without foundation.”

“The PCB expresses its gratitude for the outstanding conduct of the Pakistan team since after the first spot fixing story broke and will take all legal and disciplinary action which may result from these allegations.”

“It remains in the best interests of world cricket, the players and in particular of cricket supporters that the tour should continue, and it would set a dangerous precedent to call off a tour based on the misguided and inaccurate allegations of an English tabloid.”

Pakistan’s recently appointed new Chief Executive said: “We are looking for an apology. If it does not come we’ll look at other options. You can’t impugn someone’s integrity without having proper evidence.”

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I read somewhere that Ijaz Butt’s tenure as PCB chairmen was coming to an end but I’m not certain of the ins and outs of it all or how long he was brought in at the helm for. I’m sure one way of getting rid of him was if England were to sue him for defamation after his latest comments accusing English players of match fixing in the third ODI.

Now if by some remarkable act Ijaz Butt presents the world clear evidence to back up his claims, I’d be the first to hold up my hands. But, I have complete faith in his ineptness and stupid rantings that this will not happen. From reading his comments, I think the English team have a very strong case and should take him to the cleaners which would then

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The only evidence of ball tampering in the fourth ODI at Lord's as Paul Collingwood uses the wrong ball (his own) to knock off the bails

So what’s the next accusation the English media have in store for Pakistan? Whilst they’ve broke three match fixing stories, the next one will probably be about how Umar Gul was able to reverse swing the ball so much in engineering England’s downfall in both the last two ODIs.

In both matches, there was a sense of inevitability as Umar Gul and Shaoib Akhtar  began to reverse swing the ball as English wickets tumbled. It was as if the hand of God was guiding the ball down the wicket and giving it a little sideways nudge at the end. It was signature Pakistan. No other bowling attack in the world could ever attest to showing such quality swing bowling in cleaning up a batting line up.

As the whiter ball came into play in the 35th over of the fourth ODI, you could see the cameras starting to zoom in on the Pakistan players’ hands to check if there was anything untoward going on. There was even a comment by one of the commentators at how remarkable it is that a newish second ball can begin to reverse in and around the 42nd over, just 7 overs after it had been taken.

The ball tampering accusations were hurled at us in 1992 with Waqar and Wasim and it may happen again, but as Geoffrey Boycott said back then, “they could have bowled England out with an orange”.

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So the Sun newspaper, feeling left out after the revelations by its sister paper the News of the World, needed to get in on the match fixing scandal act by alleging that spot fixing took place during Pakistan’s victory over England in the third ODI at the Oval.

Having received evidence from the newspaper, the ICC have felt it necessary to launch an investigation into allegations that the Pakistan batting innings was scripted, with scoring patterns in two specific overs matching the evidence provided to the ICC before the game. Could something still be going on or could the said scoring patterns have been just a coincidence?

The fact that the ICC felt it necessary to launch an investigation will point to them having some substantial evidence to do so. But there are a number of reasons why these recent ongoings may just be a coincidence.

With the spotlight of the world on the Pakistan side, would anyone in the team have been brave or foolish enough to take instructions from bookies? I would be very surprised if this was the case. Secondly, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir who had been implicated previously are no longer in the side. Salman Butt was even referred to as the ringleader, so with the aforementioned not being there would something untoward still be going on? Also, with the police on Mazhar Majeed’s tail, it would be highly unlikely that he would still have contact with any of the players let alone be setting up fixes. It’s certain any other agent looking from the outside wouldn’t have dared try anything now too.

Which batsmen could have been involved?
If you look at the Pakistani line up, the only player there to have been linked with the original scandal was Kamran Akmal. Yet just looking at his innings on the day would tell you that Akmal wasn’t in long enough to carry out any instructions and neither would his freak dismissal (the ball deflected off the underside of his thigh pad, behind his leg and onto the stumps) have been something purposely planned out.

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England had no answer to Gul's reverse swing

A quite brilliant spell of swing bowling from Umar Gul clinched Pakistan the third ODI against England at the Oval. Gul finished with figures of 6-42 which included three bowled dismissals. Through certain parts of the Test series and the previous two ODIs, Gul has looked a shadow of the man who holds the accolade of being the best bowler in Twenty cricket – the form of cricket which is harshest on bowlers. Gul does seem to be one of those bowlers that needs to be near optimum fitness in order to perform at his best. A few niggles whilst he has been over here in England may lay claim to why he hadn’t shown the type of bowling he showed today.

At most points throughout the England innings it seemed as a forgone conclusion that England would knock off the runs and go into a 3-0 unassailable lead. Indeed, Billy Doctrove who saved Andrew Strauss and England in the last game tried his best to do so again today when he for some reason did not refer a stumping appeal to the third umpire. Luke Wright was the batsman and Umar Akmal, deputising for his injured brother behind the stumps, did very well to time the stumping just as Wright’s foot was off the ground. Rather than go up to the thrid umpire and make sure, Doctrove immediately said no as Akmal appealed.

Earlier in Pakistan’s innings, there was a far less convincing appeal by England, and one that would be far less in line with the spirit of the game, when Shahid Afridi took evasive action to a throw which struck his bat and went onto the stumps. Docrtrove walked over to the stumps to replace the bails and seemed as if he wasn’t going to even consider it as a run out until Stewart Broad queried it. After taking a few seconds to think about it, Doctrove

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You’d be forgiven for thinking that I’m talking about match fixing here but I’m not. This ugly face of cricket is one that is acceptable to fans, players and the game’s law makers alike. In Pakistan’s second ODI against England on Sunday, Andrew Strauss deflected the ball off his glove to the wicket-keeper yet stood his ground and refused to walk after umpire Billy Doctrove unbelievably failed to give it out. Now some may say that this is just part of the game but why does it have to be?

Andrew Strauss sullies the game but it's acceptable

Cricket has always seemed to take the moral high-ground when it comes to sports related problems such racism and hooliganism we see in football, or the continued battle athletics has with drugs use. But there is no other sport where cheating is so blatantly accepted as just a part of the game. We saw the hue and cry over the recent spot fixing allegations against the Pakistan player where law makers, supporters and players of various nations acting as if they had been truly hurt, but where are these voices when something like this happens? I deplore match-fixing, let me make that clear, but I deplore this form of cheating too. Whilst people may argue there is no comparison between the no-balls Amir and Asif bowled, I will simply ask them which act influenced the result of the game? Was it those no-balls or Strauss’ failure to walk when he was on 38 and went on to make a match winning 126. Who is the bigger cheat?

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Asad Shafiq; looks to be made of the right stuff

Pakistan may find themselves 2-0 down in the ODI series against England but Stani fans can take some hope from the two performances, particularly today’s one. In the first game which Pakistan lost by 24 runs, the difference ended up being Umar Gul and his bad day at the office with the ball. Today it was the failure of the Pakistani batsmen to accelerate near the end of their innings and get the total up and around a challenging 310.

The most pleasing aspect was the emergence of what seems like another little gem for Pakistan in Asad Shafiq. He looks a ‘busy’ type of cricketer that keeps the scoreboard ticking by just dropping the ball and picking up vital singles. As he showed in the first ODI, and at certain times today, he can also attack and do so quite effectively.

With the  3rd ODI on Friday, Pakistan should look to make a couple of changes at least with Fawad Alam and Mohammad Irfan failing to impress. Though Fawad’s strike rate was good today, he still found it difficult to get the boundaries when they were required nearer the end of the innings.  I would certainly consider bringing in Azhar Ali in place of him, who showed in he Tests that he can certainly power the ball over the boundary.

As for Mohammad Irfan, I think he has a long long way to go. Though he does have the very useful physical characteristic of height, he doesn’t make the best use of it and was a liability in the field today. He certainly shouldn’t be discarded and forgotten about, but should be worked on closely back in Pakistan at the academy

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