Forget the past and move forward

Is this how it is going to be from now on in cricket, every bloody ex player is going to pick a game they feel might have been tainted by the stain of match fixing. It does no one any good to assume because of the recent revelations. I remember being told many times when I was younger, never assume as it makes an ass out of u and me.

The past is the past, and old international players making comments about games gone by is not going to help cricket, it will only hinder and spoil the reputation of the sport even further.

It is likely that many games from the past, in many sports have been tainted by match fixing, but no one will ever know which games they were, or what the fix was. So why dredge up old games and assume it might have been a game where match fixing was in play. It serves no purpose, and it will if nothing else cause division and controversy.

What needs to take place is to find a way to stop it happening in future. The problem with match fixing is that the true evil guys are the ones we never get to hear about, the ring leaders, the betting syndicates, the real criminals, they pray on the weak, the naive, the less intelligent, as well as the greedy and selfish. It should be no surprise that the country most noted for match fixing in cricket, is the most lawless country out of the Test playing nations, the one country in financial and political trouble.

I can imagine if someone in the UK was asked to be part of a match fixing scam, they can say F**K OFF!!! But it is that easy in Pakistan? I read this morning one player had to leave the country because he did not want to participate in match fixing, which adds a more shady edge to the proceedings.

Hopefully with more technology, as well as the recent revelations and the draconian sentencing, this might start to make it harder to fix matches. It should stop the less inclined cheaters, but whether it will stop the real criminals is unlikely, and how they go about stopping it is also uncertain, but one thing that will definitely not help, is to drag up the past and assume it was a fixed game.