How cricket stars fall from grace Brendan Taylor

ON Monday, cricket’s dark and murky side once again came out in the night like an owl.

After the cricket world celebrated a phenomenal series between South Africa and India, which followed the one-sided yet intriguing Ashes campaign, the game’s hidden secret once again garnered headlines around the world.

A little more than two decades after Hansie Cronje’s disturbing fall from grace, match-fixing reared its head to send shockwaves throughout the world.

Its latest target, former Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor.

Monday’s revelations were equally shocking as disturbing, with the former wicket-keeper batsman once the glue holding the proud African nation together during a period of deep destabilisation and unrest in its local cricket fraternity.

In his troubling statement via Twitter, Taylor admits to falling to cricket’s trap.

“I’d fallen for it. I’d willingly walked into a situation that has changed my life forever,” he wrote in a remorseful and open statement.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan was one of the many cricket identities to react to the sad situation.

“This is so sad,” he tweeted. “I hope he can find a way to get better.”

Yet, this sorry tale is not the first and, certainly, it would seem, not the last.

Here is a road map to cricket’s sorry legacy.

If it sounds good to be true, it probably is.

Twenty-two-years ago, cricket applauded a bold piece of captaincy from South African captain Cronje.

After days of rain, their home Test against England appeared all but over. That was until Cronje approached his counterpart, Nasser Hussain, and asked whether both teams would declare and leave England requiring 248 runs in a little more than two sessions.

England would go on to win the Test by two wickets.

Hussain, oblivious to the ulterior motives, showered his counterpart in praise.

“I hope Hansie gets the credit he deserves,” he said.

Cronje did.

Papers around the world called it “a triumph for all too rare positive thinking” and “brave, positive and brilliant” in another.

Yet, eyebrows were raised at Lord’s, the home of cricket, for his move, which went against tradition.

Even Cronje’s teammates were left aghast. “I must be honest — I thought it was a terrible idea,” Mark Boucher wrote in his autobiography, Through My Eyes.” (Jacques) Kallis also thought it was wrong and so did (Lance) Klusener. The feeling among the junior section of the dressing room was that Test matches are never, ever to be messed with. You never give your opponents a sniff of victory in Tests unless you are desperate to win yourselves. There was a simmering atmosphere of anger.

The truth eventually came out three months later, when Delhi police revealed they had recordings of Cronje conspiring to fix matches with an Indian bookmaker.

Three months further down the road, Cronje confessed and revealed he had sold the Test for £5 000 and a leather jacket.

A mere nine months after the infamous Test, Cronje was banned from cricket for life and another two players, Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams, banned for four months after accepting their captain’s offer.

The Cronje ordeal was meant to be a stake in the road.

In reality, it was merely just the start of a murky, dark relationship with bookmakers, one that has only been clouded because of the rise of T20 cricket and franchise leagues across the globe. Cronje was not the end, he was merely just the beginning.

On May 24, 2000, the Qayyum Report was finally released. In it, life bans were recommended for Pakistan great Salim Malik and Atu-ur-Rehman. Malik was also to be fined a million rupees.

Mushtaq Ahmed and Wasim Akram, one of cricket’s greatest players, were given the benefit of reasonable doubt, although it was recommended that neither ever captain Pakistan again.

Smaller fines were also handed out to Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Akram Raza and Saeed Anwar for failing to co-operate with the inquiry.

Malik slammed the findings.

“Why me alone when others have been let off with minor fines? Whether my cricket is finished or not, I have to live a life and I have been subjected to such tortuous allegations for a long time now, it is unjust,” he said.

Shane Warne recently accused Malik of offering him and Tim May US$276 000 to underperform in a Test against him.

Malik denied the claim.

“Whenever a former cricketer launches his book or biography or anything of that sort, he tries to make things controversial to get maximum publicity,” Malik told Paktv.tv.

Soon after, Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma were banned for life and Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar were banned for five years. In his report, Qayyum wrote: “To those who are disappointed with their fallen heroes, it be suggested that humans are fallible. Cricketers are only cricketers.”

Off the back of the Qayyum Report, the ICC announced in June, 2000, it was hiring former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Condon to run a new anti-corruption unit.

A decade after the Cronje controversy, cricket was once again rocked.

Not for the first time, Pakistan’s players were in the spotlight. But this time, it was one of the fresh faces of cricket, Mohammad Amir — a young man destined to do great things after a sparkling start to his career — that had fallen foul.

The News of the World exposed another spot-fixing scandal, with captain Salman Butt and fast bowling duo Amir and Mohammad Asif who were accused.

During the fourth Test against England, Pakistan lost by an innings and 225 runs.

Pakistan lost 14 wickets on one day and were bowled out for 74 in their first innings.

But it was the massive no-balls delivered by Amir that sent more alarm bells.

The News of the World revelations merely confirmed the world’s doubts.

All three were tried in a London court for offences under the Gambling Act and were jailed in November, 2011.

Butt was banned from international cricket for a decade, while Asif was handed a seven-year ban and a one-year prison sentence.

Amir, who pleaded guilty earlier than his teammates, subsequently received a five-year international ban and eventually returned to play for Pakistan once more.

“To be honest, I never thought about my comeback and I feel seriously lucky to play Test cricket again,” Amir told AP ahead of his comeback Test at Lord’s — the stage where his world came crumbling down. —  Fox Sports

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