I am horrified by where Pakistan cricket is now headed.
Saleem Malik's attempts to be rehabilitated have unleashed a torrent of allegations and admissions.
Multiple Pakistani cricket stars have had their names associated with fixing in the past, and whether they were innocent or guilty it is instructive to consider the names which are already in the public domain:
1970's: Mushtaq Mohammad, Asif Iqbal
1980's: Qasim Omar, Saleem Malik, Ijaz Ahmed
1990's: Inzamam, Saeed Anwar, Mushtaq Ahmed, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Akram Raza, Ata-ur-Rehman, Basit Ali.
I'm deliberately not naming the names which are suspected from this century. Suffice it to say, even the Tribunal and Court which convicted Amir, Asif and Butt acknowledged that none of the three were considered to be members of the two matchfixing cliques in the Pakistan team at the time.
Now, let's be clear about this.
In my opinion fixing in the 1990s was rife across the whole of cricket. Everywhere. Most Boards took no action, and even those which took action had to trade off whether to just discard the ringleaders or whether to sacrifice their entire national team and risk years of defeats to come.
No country chose to clean the stables. Every country adopted a position somewhere between wilful blindness and selective punishment.
The difference with Pakistan is that some of the people involved are living fairly impoverished lives - such as the taxi driver who alleges that Wasim Akram tried to corrupt him.
There are countless people out there who know where the bodies are buried. There are also countless people who have turned over a new life, and some of them have become visibly pious now.
But too many people know too much. And we may have unleashed a hurricane which could cause immense damage now.
Saleem Malik's attempts to be rehabilitated have unleashed a torrent of allegations and admissions.
Multiple Pakistani cricket stars have had their names associated with fixing in the past, and whether they were innocent or guilty it is instructive to consider the names which are already in the public domain:
1970's: Mushtaq Mohammad, Asif Iqbal
1980's: Qasim Omar, Saleem Malik, Ijaz Ahmed
1990's: Inzamam, Saeed Anwar, Mushtaq Ahmed, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Akram Raza, Ata-ur-Rehman, Basit Ali.
I'm deliberately not naming the names which are suspected from this century. Suffice it to say, even the Tribunal and Court which convicted Amir, Asif and Butt acknowledged that none of the three were considered to be members of the two matchfixing cliques in the Pakistan team at the time.
Now, let's be clear about this.
In my opinion fixing in the 1990s was rife across the whole of cricket. Everywhere. Most Boards took no action, and even those which took action had to trade off whether to just discard the ringleaders or whether to sacrifice their entire national team and risk years of defeats to come.
No country chose to clean the stables. Every country adopted a position somewhere between wilful blindness and selective punishment.
The difference with Pakistan is that some of the people involved are living fairly impoverished lives - such as the taxi driver who alleges that Wasim Akram tried to corrupt him.
There are countless people out there who know where the bodies are buried. There are also countless people who have turned over a new life, and some of them have become visibly pious now.
But too many people know too much. And we may have unleashed a hurricane which could cause immense damage now.
