Sushil Pathak

I never understood and will probably never understand why Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, then two best opening bowling pair, had to involve in spot fixing and effectively ruin their career. It all started with this  2010 Lord’s test in England. I think this is such a sad story and it has left many questions unanswered thus far.

Historically Pakistan is known to be the breeding ground of finest pace bowlers. The likes of Wasim Akram, Waqar younis, Imran Khan and deadly Shoaib Akthar are few among the amazing talents Pakistan produced. They were absolute treat to watch and could literally make the ball talk. Coming from such a glorious history, these two pace bowlers Asif and Amir were deemed by many as the finest opening attack the world has seen in recent time. The pace and bounce of young Amir(18 years) and teasing and moving delivary of Asif, called by many as modern day Glen Mcgrath, were the most pleasant scenes to any fast bowing lovers. England batsmen were having a real rough time dealing with these two superb bowlers.

Then came the surprise, perhaps the biggest in the cricket history. “News of the World” magazine published the news, even before the completion of 2010 lord’s test that the bowling duo delivered the no-balls taking huge sum of money from their agent and betting mogul, Mazhar Majeed. The magazine reporter posed as one of the betters and Majeed successfully predicted the no-balls that were to be delivered in the lord’s test match after accepting the cash from the investigative reporter. This was all recorded by secret hidden camera and when both Asif and Amir delivered the no balls, right at the time which Majeed predicted, it was crystal clear that the bowlers were involved in the spot fixing rig. Captain Salman Butt was also said to be involved in the incident as it is very unlikely to spot fix the match without captain’s consent. As expected, ICC acted promptly and their anti-corruption tribunal handed Salman Butt ban of 10 years, Asif for 7 years and Amir for 5 years.

This betting rig is very unique for many reasons. First question anyone would ask is, why such talented players had to spot fix when they could make a fortune just by playing the game? Perhaps no one can answer this, not even the fixers. May be they wanted to make a few extra bucks. But, was the chance they took worth it? No, not at all. It is because the players knew that if they are caught, then that one mistake could end their career. Still, why would they want to do it? It is such a surprise. There had been fixing cases in the past. Former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin was banned for life and late South African Captain Hansie Cronje, suffered the same fate for fixing in April of 2000. But I think we cannot relate those fixing cases to this one. This is the case of two most deadly bowing attack. Like I mentioned before, they had a whole life of cricket ahead of them and of course, huge-huge amount of money. Beside handsome match fee for playing games, imagine all the money they could get from endorsements, advertisements and the central contract from the board. But still, they choose to spot fix and perhaps we will never see them in action again, not at least in their best form.

The case of Mohammad Amir is even more tragic. Coming from a poor background in Pakistan, he was seen a junior Wasim Akram. Even Wasim Akram himself had once said that he was not as good as Amir at that age. The cricketing world was just so delighted by this young talent. He had serious pace(could bowl at 150kmps), could swing the bowl either way and could bowl excellent short pitch bowls at his will. A lot of time, England batsmen were pretty much clueless to his attack. He had shown the same skills and temperament in the series against New Zealand and  Australia too. Not only that, he was a very handy lower order batsman and you could count on his batting at crisis situation. But now, it’s all gone and he is done and dusted. He cannot even play county games as ICC has banned him from all forms of cricket. He is paying the price for his greed and perhaps for his immaturity. Considering his age, I personally think that he was lured in to it by his captain and some other greedy, filthy fellows. But, that’s not to say that he was not involved at all. He definitely played his part and sadly paid a huge huge price for it.

Right now, they are being prosecuted at the London court. You can follow the entire court proceedings here. Soon we will all be able to dig deep into the case. I am sure this proceeding will unearth more “interesting” facts. Regardless of everything, demise of what would be the best bowlers of world is devastating for the game of cricket and it’s loyal fans. 😦

Below you can see a video tribute to Mohammad Amir. This video shows some glimpses of his extraordinary talent( I don’t own the video. Credit to shaf2k8 for wonderful compilation).