Pakistan High Commissioner

The chap in question, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan high commissioner to the UK, has all of a sudden gone very quiet. Gone are all the brash statements that it's a "set-up", and "we will go to a court of law to defend them", to be replaced with a defening silence.

How come he hasn't remarked on the latest round of NOTW allegations? Where is the robust defence of Yasir Hameed on the steps of the High Commission?

I wonder if someone somewhere might have whispered in his ear, that actually these allegations might be true, and therefore it might be in your interests to keep your opinions to yourself until we know more, or all of the facts.

Hasan's statements have been quite remarkable. If it turns out he has backed the wrong horse in this race then how can he be taken seriously in future?

In his line of work credability must be essential, and it must be important not to lose it with a series of ill-advised statements.

Only time will tell if he was right, but a telling note in all this could be the fact that even Ijaz Butt has decided to keep his opinions to himself.

Spot-Fixing Bandwagon Rolls On

There still appears to be more questions than answers at the moment, but the Spot-Fixing scandal now (thankfully) seems to be moving to a faster conclusion after ICC charged the 3 men in question with "various offences" under the provisions of the Anti-Corruption Code.

What the offences are, we don't know as that information hasn't been released. Questions have also been asked of why it took ICC until Thursday to charge them in light of the evidence already in the public domain.

Personally, I wonder was the ICC's decision reached after the bombastic inputs from Pakistan's high commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan?

Hasan, who seems like a man who can make Ijaz Butt look moderate, started his tirades earlier in the week by claiming the players were innocent, and his evidence is? Because they told him so.

This man is something else, could you really see a British equivalent behaving in such a brash manner in these sort of circumstances? I couldn't, as I think he might find himself out of a job.

Surely a man in a position of such importance should be more cautious with his remarks. After such a robust defence if the accusations turn out to be true how can he ever be taken seriously again? There are better and more diplomatic ways of defending your fellow countrymen than the way Hasan has gone about things.

He then later went on to claim that the whole thing was a set up by the News of the World, and that they would take the paper "to a court of law to defend them". Not surprisingley, the NOTW were not impressed and after saying the claims were "ludicrous", they rather ominously said "watch this space".

Hasan, then on Friday accused ICC of "playing to the public gallery," in suspending the trio. He also accused ICC of giving assurances that they wouldn't act until Scotland Yard's investigation were over. All of this was unsurprisingley denied by Haroon Lorgat.

With further claims that Ijaz Butt had to be pursuaded to withdraw the players from the rest of the tour to protect the integrity of the game by Haroon Lorgat, it is no wonder that ICC had to take the lead and suspend them. It looks like they had no choice but to act, as it would appear they would be waiting a long time if they waited for the Pakistani authorities to take the lead.

I'm now waiting for Ijaz Butt to start shooting from the hip as well, that should be fun, it's remarkable how after a week he hasn't come out with some outrageous take on what has happened.

There is apparently a game of cricket to be played sometime soon, but in the current constant media frenzy it is easy to forget this. Although maybe that could yet be in the balance depending on what the NOTW comes out with this Sunday. It is almost certain that the newspaper has plenty more up it's sleave, and is the best/worst of the news still yet to come?

In the meantime we can wait and see what claims and counter claims come out on Saturday. Maybe Hasan will have a day off, and see if he can be bettered by Ijaz Butt, or anybody else that fancies a go.

If it wasn't so serious to the game of cricket, it would all be quite funny.

Pietersen dropped by England

Kevin Pietersen was pissed off to say the least with the England selectors decision to drop him from both squads for the upcoming T20's and ODI's against Pakistan.

His Tweet 'Its a Fuke Up!!', hasn't gone down too well with national selector Geoff Miller, who claims he will speak to KP about it.

On the surface though, it does look like a fuck-up. To say that this morning, and then say this afternoon "While I'm naturally disappointed to have been omitted from the England squad, I fully understand the reasons why and will be doing everything I can to get back into the England team," suggests there has been a breakdown in communication somewhere.

Looking in from the outside I get the impression that KP got the message this morning that he had been dropped. He then made his twitter outburst expressing his feelings, before Miller or someone in the England camp explained to him that it was part of a plan to get him playing county cricket to regain his form.

Surely it must have dawned on someone that KP is a bit fragile at the moment, he would appear to be still be struggling with the humiliation of losing the captaincy and he dosen't need what he considers to be another embarrassing snub from England.

In a way I can see some logic in this decision. Doing this gives him a chance to spend some time in the middle and work on rebuilding his confidence. But on the other hand it could be a further knock to his confidence. It is a big, big call so close to the Ashes, and I can only hope the selectors have got it right.

All the KP knockers will now be queing up to say 'I told you so'. And the Aussies will no doubt be giving their opinions from afar, I bet they are laughing their heads off at this mess.

I have no doubt that Pietersen wants to play for England, you only have to look at his body language in the field whenever England take a wicket, he is nearly always the first man on the scene to celebrate.

I'm also loathed to criticize the selectors as they have done a good job lately. They have finally got their act together with the one day squads, and their policy of continuity in the test squad also seemed to be paying off. So why take this risk now?

A further negative that could cause Pietersen to have a gripe over this, is the fact that the selectors have backed other players through dodgy test form recently. The continued backing of Cook and Collingwood must have Pietersen wondering why he is the only one to carry the can.

Just under a year ago I wrote an article about England being more of a team of personalities, rather than talent, and this could be further proof.

Why hasn't Paul Collingwood been despatched back to his county in such ruthless fashion? I know he is T20 captain, and has to play in those games. But surely he could go back to his county instead of playing in the 50 over games? After all Collingwood has only manged to play one 1st class game for Durham this season, and KP scored more runs than him in the Pakistan series.

The continued support of Alastair Cook, who - despite his century - still looks all over the place with his footwork, and the seemingly different treatment reserved for Collingwood could further unstable KP's mind and leave him wondering why he seems to be getting singled out.

I almost get the feeling that there could be more to this decision than Geoff Miller is letting on, thats it's not purely a cricketing decision. England's Ashes campaign could depend on the outcome of this, so I hope Geoff Miller knows what he is doing.

God help us!

The one and only Ijaz Butt is back on the scene to give his expert leadership and guidence in the Spot-Fixing scandal currently dominating cricket. Butt is just the man you need in the middle of a crisis, who better to steady the ship and calm the waters than the PCB Chairman. I suppose it was inevitable that as leader of the PCB, he would raise his ugly head at some stage, but for some reason or another I had forgotten about him.

Maybe I sub-consciously thought that there is no way this man could still be involved in Pakistani cricket, but obviously I was wrong.

It would appear that Butt is defending his men and looking for a fight. Both the England team (speaking through the Professional Cricketers Association), and ICC have made it fairly clear that they don't want the three accused to play in the upcoming limited overs series.

Butt though has different ideas, he claims that no one has been found guilty and as a result he is not prepared to suspend anyone, and is giving the indication that he wants the three to carry on playing until the issue is resolved.

Diplomacy at its best.

I have a feeling that this could end up becoming a major issue by the weekend. The England players seem to have made it clear that they don't wish to compete with anyone under investigation, so if Butt continues to dig his heels in there could be a bit of a stand-off.

The ECB will obviously have no intention of losing revenues and calling the games off as a matter of principle. The thought of that would mean someone having to take Giles Clarke's laces and belt from him.

For Ijaz Butt to be coming out with remarks like "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." shows that he wants to fight his corner, and in his defence it could be argued that they should be classed as innocent until proven guilty.

But from a diplomatic point of view, it is the usual two fingered salute from Butt. The better and the good of the game of cricket on the whole still dosen't rank too highly on Butt's priority list.

I await with great interest his next intervention. Maybe he will claim it is all a set up and an act of revenge from his old mate Chris Broad. One thing is for sure, it will be somebody else's fault.

Ramiz Raja

In the midst of all the controversy currently surrounding the Pakistani cricket team, one man I couldn't help but feel sorry for when I seen him on my television this morning was Ramiz Raja.

Here is a man who thought he had probably seen Pakistani cricket at its lowest ebbs. Now it appears this might not be the case.

He must have felt embarrassed by the behaviour of certain Pakistan team members when he turned up for work today, on both Sky TV and Test Match Special on Radio, although I'm sure his fellow commentators hold him in high regard and go out of their way to make him feel comfortable.

Ramiz comes across as a man of dignity and great integrity. And this is never more obvious than when time and time again he has to front up to television and radio when his fellow countrymen are making the headlines for the wrong reasons, and he always does so with a sense of fairness and realism.

He also apparently played a large roll in getting the boards of Pakistan and India back round the table during turbulent times in the early 2000's. No mean feat.

During the 34th over of today's play when Umar Akmal hit Graeme Swann for 6 into the crowd, Ramiz was commentating at the time and remarked "Dropped catch in the aisle, must have been a Pakistan fan." It showed a remarkable sense of humour and a lot of character from Ramiz and brought a smile to my face.

Ramiz is a person whom I have the utmost respect for, he represents the good side of Pakistani cricket and he deserves better from his fellow countrymen. A lot of them could do a lot worse than follow the example he has set during his career as a cricketer, administrator and commentator. If they did, I think it would be fair to say that they would be in a far better position than they appear to be in at the moment.

Spot-Fixing and Cricket

The title of my last blog now looks very outdated and stupid (to say the least) after the latest revelations of Spot-Fixing or at the least, players being in the pockets of middle men working for bookmakers.

Although they are unproven allegations at the moment, it has to be said that it dosen't look good for certain members of the Pakistani team. Hearing Nasser Hussain say on Sky at the start of todays coverage that it it no surprise to him, that the stories have been in the background for some time now, is a damnation of sorts.

The commentators on Sky and TMS are around the players enough to hear all these rumours, I'm sure that the England players would also be aware, although none would probably openly admit it.

If these allegations are true, then it is remarkable how quickly new captain Salman Butt has been recruited into the system. This would appear to show that these shady characters have been around the team for some time now, a theory which can only be backed up by the news that the Pakistan team were warned by the management not to associate with Mazhar and Azhar Majeed in their hotel, although that would appear to be a rule applied to all agents, not just these two.

At the moment it looks like Mazhar Majeed has proved he has the players in his pocket, there is no evidence to suggest that any match has been thrown or result influenced. Nevertheless, it is still a very serious incident and I hope that ICC don't use this as a reason to let people off with a slap on the rist. As who knows what the next stage was to be?

It dosen't take an idiot to work out that the big money gambled on cricket isn't gambled on a no-ball in the 3rd over of a test match. The fact that Majeed can get the players to do this shows that he could in all probability get them to do other things.

For example, go for a lot of runs in an ODI, while there might not be enough of a market to gamble on a no-ball in a test match, there would be a market for whether or not a bowler went for over or under 60 runs (for example) in his 10 overs in the upcoming 50 over series. This could also be enough runs to influence the overall result of a match.

The problem that could arise for ICC is that there might not be a massive amount of evidence to back these allegations up. It might look dodgy, but in the cold light of day they could be genuine no-balls. Could a conviction in a court of law be obtained on this evidence? Without being a lawyer, I don't know, but I doubt it.

This is were it becomes a potentially massive problem for ICC. If the evidence isn't good enough they could be reluctant to hand out appropiate punishments for fear of being sued. And therein comes the next problem. ICC could end up relying on the Pakistani authorities to hand out the punishments, and we all know their track record.

At the very least, the News Of The World have brought this problem back out into the public domain. I would imagine that stories within the cricket industry are rife, but without any hard evidence there is probably a reluctance to look too hard into them and make them public knowledge.

As has been the case in previous match fixing allegations, and bungs in football, it appears to be very hard to prove. It looks like it is never going to be eliminated, as cricketers can't be watched 24 hours a day.

There is a responsibility on ICC and the individual cricket boards to keep on educating players on the dangers of this, but there is only so much they can do. Are they doing enough, is now the question? These latest stories show that the they all would appear to still have plenty of work to do, it will be interesting to see how they handle it this time.

Test Cricket is Alive and Well

Friday was yet another enthralling day of test cricket. In the new crash, bang, wallop era it was the sort of day that proves that the test format is still the pinnacle of cricket.

In the morning the headlines belonged to Mohammad Amir for his remarkable one man show bowling performance, and to Kevin Pietersen for his now, more than troublesome batting frailties.

Then after lunch Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad took over with magnificent centuries. Trott showed the sort of discipline and attitude that England's batsmen consistently lack, and as the partnership developed you could see these attributes rubbing off on Broad.

Any doubts over Trott's place in the side when Bell returns are now dead and buried. He always seemed the odd man out to me, I always had the impression he had to do more than the likes of Bell, Morgan and Collingwood to keep his place. His place is now in no doubt, Jonathan Agnew described it as by far his best innings, even better than his debut century at the Oval last year to help England win the Ashes. Thats some accolade.

Stuart Broad seemed to be going down the well trodden route of prospective all-rounder, to just being a bowler who could throw the bat a bit. One century dosen't make him a number 6, but it does show that there is still plenty to work with.

This wasn't a fluke innings, it wasn't one of those times when a tailender just throws the bat with no pressure and it comes off, it was a proper innings. When Broad came out to bat the whole series had just about been thrown away by England. Broad responded with remarkable fighting spirit. And lets remember he hasn't just smacked some average bowling attack around, this isn't Bangladesh, this Pakistani attack can stand alongside any in world cricket.

While England's batting frailties were there to be seen again yesterday, the positives to take from this (and there are some positives this time, Michael Vaughan) are that England fought back from the brink of defeat in a manner we aren't used to seeing from them. Both these centuries counted, the whole summers work was just about to be undone before Trott and Broad intervened, they were proper test match, high pressure innings.

In a match that has already swung one way and then the other, it will be interesting to see if Pakistan can fight back again. If not for their own pride, the Pakistan players owe it to Mohammad Amir to make a match of this. This young man deserves as much credit as Trott and Broad have received, any other day and he would have been the headline maker.

His efforts shouldn't be overshadowed. He looked a decent prospect in Australia last winter, he has now shown during this English summer that he is already the real deal. Yesterdays showing was the culmination of an impressive summers all-round cricket from the youngster, and he has now already got his name on the Lord's Honours Board, and probably not for the last time either.