Match and Spot-Fixing - a Great Cricket Scandal!

The deeper you dig the more dirt you uncover. Disgraceful! More like the 'Tennis Dishonesty Unit' (TDU). Where is there a
'commode' when you need one? This is more damaging to tennis than the players fixing games. 

www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/feb/09/revealed-tennis-umpires-secretly-banned-gambling-scam

Appalling. And why has he been banned for only 5 years? Surely an umpire found guilty of corruption should be banned for life?

It appears 'The Guardian' have taken over the investigative reporting into tennis match-fixing from the BBC and Buzzfeed. Great
to see. 

There are parallels between tennis and cricket, at present, as corrupt umpires are now in the spotlight. This article suggests their
was "a blunder" concerning Croatia's Denis Pitner.

"...banned for a year in August after passing on details about a player's fitness and accessing an account used to place bets.
Pitner was approved by the US Open on 13 July and picked up his credential before the USTA was notified of a ban. The USTA responded
on Friday, blaming 'a flaw in our process'."

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/35566370

It is odd that if a player or umpire is found to be corrupt at some smaller tournament, this is deemed not to be so bad. But if at a 'Major'
like the US Open or shock, horror, 'Wimbledon', the establishment go into a frenzy.

Meanwhile, surprise, surprise, the establishment have closed ranks as four different tennis authorities state an investigation into match-fixing
and corruption in tennis will take "at least one year to complete."

A classic ploy to distract the media and the public away from the scandal, in the hope all eyes will focus on another sports calamity. It amazes me how easily the public are fooled by such a trick - one that is used so regularly by the establishment.

www.newseveryday.com/articles/31615/20160212/tennis-match-fixing-investigation-will-take-at-least-1-year.htm

One hopes 'The Guardian' and other investigative bodies will continue their rigorous research, in the hope other whistleblowers come forward with damming information. Meanwhile, cricket has taken exactly the same route by forming their own investigative body where, amusingly, some of those on the Board will be investigating themselves. 

When a batsman is given out they seem to routinely check to see if a no-ball has been bowled. Perhaps it is now time that on the very rare occasion when a wicket falls off a no ball they also now check to see if it actually was one. All this technology is supposed to be to insure that the correct decision is ultimately arrived at.

Sir Ronnie's latest press conference (www.espncricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/story/978837.html) is stirring up clouds of speculation about which side he has in mind when he said the ACU has "thwarted" attempts to manipulate matches.Of course the fact that this has come out at the start of the WorldT20, an unparalelled money-making opportunity for bookmakers and gangsters the world over, and only incidentally and nominally a sporting contest is of rather more importance than that, once again, the ACU says it is "...very difficult...to talk about specific details about an ongoing case....am certain that our action in that particular case did indeed avert the intention of just one or two individuals, and we have taken action in relation to those individuals and we will be taking further action" ete, etc.

Why is it that Sir Ronnie with all these difficulties in naming names, and the cases that don't quite go to trial, or if they do don't quite have enough evidence to convince juries, reminds me of a particular fictional character? In the last of John Le Carre's Smiley novels about the Circus, The Honourable Schoolboy, after the denouement when the more or less noble-minded hero has been cynically betrayed by his own side and the CIA have swept up all the goodies from the operation, the closing scenes sweep up what's left of the story, including reports of the involvement of the Hong Kong Superintendent Rockhurst (The Rocker) in "a recent spectacular narcotics trial mounted with the help of the American Drugs Enforcement Agency. Several Chinese and a glamorous English adventuress, a heroin carrier, were featured, and though as usual the Mr Big was never brought to justice, it was said the Rocker came within an ace of nailing him. 'Our tough but honest troubleshooter, wrote the South China Morning Post, in an editorial praising his astuteness, 'Hong Kong could do with more like him'.

Could we do with more like Ronnie?