Spot fixing: Top players of other countries never get involved or managements turn a blind eye?

[Titan24]

So as the title says is it really the case that no top player from any of the country other than Pakistan ever failed to report an approach or got involved in any such thing?

In 2010, 3 of Pakistan's tops stars got banned for 5 years. Then in 2017, emerging star in the form of Sharjeel Khan got banned for 2.5 years, Khalid Latif a domestic start who started to find his feet at international level got banned for 10 years and during the same time Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Nawaz got bans for few months. Now in 2020, Umer Akmal gets banned for 3 years due to approaches.

So in the last decade or so other countries have combined witnessed a handful of cases. Marlon Samuels of WI and Shakib Ul Hassan being the stand out names. Other names who played some international cricket are Ghulam Bodi, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Sreesanth and maybe a few others.

So is it really the case that no top players other than 1 or 2 from any cricket playing nation ever failed to report an approach or got involved in any such thing? Is there really so much honesty and integrity going around in rest of the cricketing world?

Or is it the case with managements either turning blind eyes or handling such cases behind closed doors with minimum impact to their cricket and national teams?

What do you guys think?

 

[trickyone]

Spot Fixing is everywhere, our players try to make a side deal and then they get caught...

 

[Titan24]

Spot Fixing is everywhere, our players try to make a side deal and then they get caught...

Interesting point. Definitely there can be a case of being caught due the certain mistakes and not being caught.

 

[silentkiller187]

I just think some are smarter at covering it up then others. For example the Chris cairns case a few years ago opened up a can of worms, I think Brendon McCullum failed to report or something along those lines, and Lou Vincent got about 10 life bans from the ECB. I think it was very rife amongst all at one point, not just the “poorer”nations.

 

[Saj]

Plenty more out there and over the years, much of which was brushed under the carpet.

 

[ads101]

Usually top players don't engage in fixing. As Lou Vincent's ex wife put it , "like other alleged fixers who believe they have a short, underpaid shelf-life, wanted more than the game had given him".

Fixers target these fringe, out of favour cricketers like Jamshed. Guys who deep down probably know they aren't going to consistently play/have long careers. Butt was in and out of the side with a poor record, he probably picked up fixing before he was made captain (which was abrupt and probably a shock even to him). Asif in and out of the sides, banned from UAE, drug convictions etc., he hardly played many matches, hence no surprise he fixed.

Amir is the exception. But if he had waited for the domestic offers to come in, he probably wouldn't have fixed. He was new, perhaps too greedy to wait and play a few years to really get the money in.

In Pakistan we are lenient on fixing. We never extend bans, even campaign to get them reduced. And try to get players who fixed back into the international fold after bans. The risk is smaller, hence more are tempted to fix. In a lot of other countries, it's life ban. Too much of a risk, it's not worth it.

In other countries fixing is also seen as more morally wrong. Cricketers understand that. Look at Lou Vincent's apology, he gave no excuses, he understood the gravity of what he did. And he got the harshest ban possible, I don't think he's even allowed to enter a cricket ground, let alone coach or play.

In Pakistan it isn't as much. The way Butt talked about it (and Haider too) they act like everyone was doing it so might as well. They also don't really see spot fixing as the same crime either, as if bowling no balls doesn't hurt anyone. And this isn't meaning every cricketer does it, they're talking about their team. It's near impossible really to know if the other teams players are fixing (unless they approach you), but much easier to be aware of your own.

So I don't really think it's turning a blind eye. We just suffer from it more I think, and as I said the big names from our country don't fix. Like Afridi, YK, Misbah etc can you really imagine them fixing? Of course not. And even if it's the case that other boards turn a blind eye, it doesn't excuse us. You don't use someone else's bad doings to excuse your own. I care more about riding Pakistan of fixing than I do other boards. Which is why I don't really think it's a bad thing fixers cropping up. It shows work is being done to get rid of the fixers. If anything I'm grateful when cricketers get banned, it stops them before they fix more and get others into fixing. What we do wrong is showing too much leniency to get them back.

 

[sweep_shot]

There are possibly more players who are involved with different types of fixing. It is just that not everyone gets caught.