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Ijaz Butt’s statement in which he indirectly accused English team of match fixing has offended the whole England. ECB in retaliation has announced that they  will not host Pakistan team for a neutral venue series in near future, their Ex Cricketers are making calls to suspend Pakistan from International cricket.

Why the English people are so upset ? Their response is so exaggerated as if Ijaz Butt molested their Mother Queen in public.

Cricket and match fixing both were invented by Englishmen and the very first man caught for match fixing was also an Englishmen, match fixing is still rampant in County cricket which is the nursery for the main English team, so why do we believe that English players are Saints and no finger should be pointed toward them.

If Pakistan team can be investigated on the basis of batting collapses and other on field blunders then why not the English players. The factors which can prompt an ACSU investrigation should be the same for all countries.

England’s most capped player Alec Stewart was named in a match fixing scandal for taking a $5000 bribe but was declared innocent after an in house investigation by ECB. Why the ICC didn’t investigated him? Why they allowed ECB to sweep it under the carpet.

It is only fair that if ICC is going to act on hearsy and loose circumstantial grounds and are going to hound Pakistan team and launch investigations against them even if they win a match after a tough fight then they should be prepared to investigate all teams on every allegation levelled against them regardless of the source and should do so with the same zeal as they demonstrated against Pakistan after the third Odi. 

And if the morons at ICC have any balls then they should  deploy their ACSU units during IPL matches, their have been countless reports in the media that most of the IPL matches in the past have been fixed but BCCI never allowed ACSU to even set foot in their stadiums while IPL was in progress.

 If ICC will fail to implement its anti corruption and doping policies in the territories of stronger members then ofcourse the players of those countries will remain clean as they never got investigated or tested.

A surprise and random dope test was performed on four Pakistan players but surprisingly no English players were picked. Isn’t this a targeted assault against Pakistan?

Why the no English players were tested?  Does the ICC assumes that  sportsmen of western nations do not take drugs? 

Is spot fixing the only evil faced by cricket? Can match fixing be done only through players?

Can anybody from ICC answer me how many times in the last decade they have scruitinized the performance of their umpires? If ICC can act against Pakistan based on just circumstantial grounds and start investigating the matches they played in last three years then why don’t they investigate Billy Doctrove whose judgement errors were always skewed in the favor of English players especially Strauss. Pakistan had to get Strauss’s wicket at least twice in three Odis where he scored above 50. Was it a mere coincidence? I don’t think so, if it had happened once or twice I could have believed it but it happened three or four times and that is a pattern especially when Strauss was visibly communicating with the umpires after appeals and was signalling them not out by shaking his head.

In every match the errors in judgement made by both umpires always favored the Englishmen. Isn’t this corruption? The no balls bowled by Aamer and Asif didn’t changed the outcome of that match the biased umpiring definitely changed the outcome of the match in which Strauss scored a century.

The English players and especially Strauss are portraying themselves as Saints, but I havent seen a bigger fucking cheat than Strauss who stood his ground shamelessly on several occasions when he knew he was out but he also knew that the umpires will protect him.

If crickets governing body is going to implement rules in a different manner amongst its members then no wonder Pakistan team feels that they are being targeted. The rules for the Indian, Australian and English players are different then the rules for players from Pakistan.

Marcus Trescothik admitted in his book how English team used to do ball tampering, ICC never chose to investigate the matter and punish the culprits, James Anderson and Stuart broad got caught red handed tampering the ball but once again ICC turned a blind eye. Stuart broad injured Zulqernain Haider but got away with a slap on his wrist. There are countless other examples where ICC just looked the other way or let the culprits off the hook by imposing a small fine. 

Historically Pakistan’s every tour of England resulted in controversies, English media always targets the key players in the team, Wasim and Waqar were accused of ball tampering but since England’s own bowlers started reversing the ball they couldn’t use that accusation anymore. Darryl Hair robbed Pakistan of a test match and single handedly created a huge controversy which affected Pakistan team for a long time.

The controversies hatched by English media against Pakistan team over the years have been far more damaging than Ijaz Butt’s stupid statement. So to hell with  English media  and to hell with the English players, they are no saints. 

It’s been a few years that after every loss that Pakistan suffers the media all over the world with a few exceptions cries out fowl play and demands that Pakistan’s test status should be stripped off, they should be demoted to an associate status and lately according to Ian Botham and a few others Pakistan should be kicked out of International cricket in order to save the game. Match fixing problem is not limited to just Pakistan.

In this article I am not defending Ijaz Butt here nor I am trying to blindly defend Pakistan’s cricket team, Ijaz Butt is a complete moron and there are corrupt elements both in Pakistan team and it’s mangement who have flourished under Ijaz Butt’s administration, I have no sympathy for any cricketer who has been indulged in match fixing.

But does the corruption in cricket is only prevailent in Pakistan team? Is it only PCB which tries to sweep every thing under the carpet.

Here’s a brief history of match fixing during the last decade. Neither the match fixing started with Pakistan team nor it will end with it, players from all the member nations in the past have been involved in it and only a few ever got punished the rest were saved by their respective boards by just issuing a simple statement that no evidence was found against them, ICC never challenged the decision of those boards.

The most glaring example is of Lara who was acquitted on the basis of an affdavitt of a bookmaker.

I don’t think ICC has the power to expel or suspend Pakistan from International cricket it’s not easy but some may continue to dream about it as Pakistan team will emerge stronger than before after every crisis.