Posted by We’ve already made it clear that we would never accept money to underperform, but if we were that sort of person, the court case involving Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif would make us think again.
At the time of writing, Butt has been found guilty of conspiracy to cheat and of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments. Mohammad Asif has been found guilty of conspiracy to cheat and the jury are still considering the second charge.
Butt could, in theory, get seven years in prison. You would think that might actually prove a deterrent to at least some of the spot-fixers out there.
The players involved in spot-fixing seem to move in a world where it’s not considered that big a deal. Well, seven years in prison says otherwise in a loud, clear, insistent and slightly hectoring voice.
The idea that the sport’s governing body might (but probably wouldn’t) catch you and ban you for a year is one thing, but this is something else. This is real-life punishment. Shame it took a newspaper of questionable morals and the British legal system to make an example of someone.
Huzzah for the British justice system!
If I hadn’t quit alcohol, I’d be drinking today. Cheap beer, not champagne. Never could afford that stuff. Champagne, not cheap beer. Don’t you miss cheap beer? The ones you could get in gas stations for a dollar a can? Not the big bottles wrapped in a brown paper bag, mind you. No, no, not that. Society looks at you funny when you walk along the street downing that stuff. Tried that once. A mother drew her daughter inside the house giving me a suspicious glance. I didn’t get the clue then. But did the next day. I did like Sam Adams though. Nothing great about it, of course. Just makes a person want to drink more. Like any other booze, I suppose. But then again, nothing beats a rum and coke. My record was sixteen of those bad boys in a night. Felt pretty good the next morning.
But yes, good they got these bastards.
We saw a guy drinking what looked like a three-litre bottle of cider ‘concealed’ inside a fairly transparent plastic bag on the train the other day.
Maybe he’d had a tip-off about the verdict and was celebrating early.
Sentencing is on Thursday, apparently. I wonder if you can still get tickets. As far as I know there is only one actual recording of a real judge handing out a sentence ( “You are an habitual criminal who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard…” ) but I reckon it’s a safe bet that they all sound like that. With any luck it will finish in the same way too.
Anyway, here are some topical cryptic crossword clues:
Cheating bastard? I hardly think so. (4)
On the other hand, the first cheating bastard. (4)
Cheating bastard? Take a look in a mirror. (4)
BTW, what’s happening with the last one?
Struggling with the first clue. Wouldn’t “I hardly think so before time” be more strictly true.
I don’t quite get what is happening with Amir. i’d picked up from an Indian website a while back that he and Majeed had pleaded guilty, but I do know whether he has also been convicted with a bargained down sentance or if his trial was adjourned after the plea.
All leaves a bit of an unpleasant taste, like KC’s rotten sour kraut.
Maybe Amir pleads guilty like Afridi retires?
@thesmudge
Asif, Butt and Amir in that order. Does that help?
Amir did plead guilty but it seems the media could not report it until today.
They are all going down like a cheap whore.
Now that is novel. Amir will have a sentence decided in a “Newton Hearing” a term (according to Wikipedia, so it must be true) which stems from a 1983 buggery case.
On Twitter, Tino Best has confirmed that “this isn’t a lol matter”.
OMG!
Huzzah for Tino Best!
What a glorious day for our sport.
ROFLZOMG!!11
Bets on it, corruptly – no laughing matter for this cricketer (4,4)
Nice.
Had to have that explained to us.
Well done.