Fixing Cricket

“Nothing undermines the credibility of any sport more than the suspicion that what you are watching is in fact a fix,” intones the Guardian’s editorial as a new cricket scandal emerges. Cricket and betting have long gone together and with betting, all too often, comes cheating, the paper observes. In fact, it says corrupt practices and deliberate underperformance permeate all aspects of the game. There are charges of match-fixing and betting coups, ball-tampering, sledging, time-wasting, refusal to accept umpires’ decisions and, now, spot-fixing. “Cricket must put its house in order fast,” the paper says.