Cricket not the boring thing it once was

cricketSince when did cricket suddenly decide to get all exciting again. You’d imagine the guardians of the early game such as WG Grace wouldn’t be at all impressed with all the legal wrangling going on, but us, the spectators, are rather amused by everything that continues to surround the traditionalists paradise. Match fixing has been the word on the lips of people who know next to nothing about cricket, and England thought they were immune to any allegations – they were wrong.

Yesterday chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Ijaz Butt, decided that England had fixed the weekend’s third one day international between the two countries, much to the ire of the England side. Was Butt merely so surprised at the fact that Pakistan had won a game that it had to have been fixed?

Andrew Strauss and members of the England team threatened to sue after the allegations were made, but the Pakistan High Commissioner, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, has defended it as a “very innocent argument,” basically then continuing to say that as England had made allegations against the Pakistan players, then it was ok to do it the other way. Mudslinging doesn’t even cover it.

Oh and England lost yesterday’s game that they almost boycotted. That extra money the fixers were offering must have been too hard to resist.