A tale of two defeats and the whiff of corruption

Adelaide 2006. England begin the final day with everyone except Shame Warne resigned to the fact that a drab match will peter out to a draw on a lifeless wicket. But an inept, over-cautious and dismal batting performance leads to England's worst test defeat since the nadir of 1999 when a home series loss to New Zealand saw them sink to the bottom of the ICC rankings - below even Zimbabwe.

Sydney 2010. Just over three years later Australia begin the fourth day of the second test only 82 runs ahead with two second innings wickets left, it seems inevitable that Pakistan will square the series ahead of what would be the deciding third test in Hobart. But a brilliant partnership between Michael Hussey and Peter Siddle coupled with a horrific performance behind the stumps by Kamran Akmal and ridiculously negative captaincy from Mohammad Yousuf enabled Australia to set a target of 176 for victory. This proved beyond Pakistan with a hopeless batting collapse leading to yet another famous Australian come-from-behind triumph.

For both defeated sides the depressing nature of defeat ultimately led to series whitewash defeats. And for the losing captains Andrew Flintoff and Yousuf, it spelt the beginning of the end for their brief tenures at the helm. The manner of the series defeats also led to the cricket boards of each country conducting official inquiries into what went wrong.

This is where the stories become very different.

The ECB's inquiry produced a number of recommendations which were not implemented and soon forgotten. No-one mentioned anything about corruption or conspiracy with regards to England's dismal performance and rightly so.

The PCB investigation on the other hand led to 'life bans' for Yousuf and former skipper Younis Khan, one year suspensions for Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved, and fines and reprimands for Kamran Akmal, his brother Umar and Shahid Afridi. And of course with Pakistan, it wasn't long before politicians were queueing up to make unsubstantiated claims of match-fixing and that rather than just having a poor day at the office, Kamran Akmal had deliberately dropped catches and missed a simple run-out opportunity.

But most cricket fans thought that was just the nature of the constant state of flux associated with Pakistan cricket. However, the story has now taken a more sinister twist with news that the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) is working with the PCB to investigate the tour to see whether the disastrous results were the result of a poor, dis-spirited and dysfunctional side or something more serious.

In a press conference at Lord's, ACSU chief Paul Condon said that:

"We are satisfied that that was a totally dysfunctional tour from a Pakistani point of view, and that dysfunctionality in the dressing room led to players not performing well, and maybe making them potentially underperform deliberately. What we still need to establish is whether that was because rival camps wanted to do down captains or potential captains, or whether it was something more serious, doing it for a financial fix.

"We are working very closely with the PCB but at the moment it is a flurry of allegation, rather than any hard fact. The investigations at the time suggested it was more about a dysfunctional team, rather than matchfixing. But it is a live inquiry."

I'm not sure what is worse. If some Pakistan cricketers were deliberately under-performing because they didn't like Mohammad Yousuf then arguably that it is even worse than doing it for money. Of course, it could just be that they were soundly beaten in all forms of cricket by a better side with better players and certainly one that was more focussed and had better team harmony.

This story looks like it is going to roll and roll.

Comments

[Mahek]

I guess you haven't been following the story very closely. Here's what cricinfo's #1 man in Pakistan said:

"Two captains, Younis and Yousuf, have publicly said their players were actively trying to uproot them. The most shocking parts of the video - and there are enough - are Rana Naved-ul-Hasan's happy confessions of first siding against and then siding with Younis, and underperforming under him. He says it with unrepentant, shocking candour."

Full article at http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/460463.html

[The Reverse Sweep]

Gee. I hadn't seen that. That is incredible. How can anyone deliberately underperform for their country? It's like a classroom of children!

[Mahek]

You do know about the leaked video, don't you? :)

[The Reverse Sweep]

Been reading about it today. It's unbelievable!