MacGill Wants Life Bans For Fixers Post by: The Learned One and CK 30 August, 2010 - 8:04 AM

Life bans must be dished out to every Pakistani player and official who has been involved in the latest betting scandal which has rocked the cricket world, according to Triple M’s Stuart MacGill.

British police have seized the cell phones of three Pakistan cricketers as they investigate an alleged betting scam involving the just-completed Test against England at Lord's.

Bowlers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif delivered blatant no-balls at the exact points in the match agreed with an alleged fixer.

The News of the World newspaper says it paid player agent Mazhar Majeed more than $260,000 after he claimed to be able to affect play.

And MacGill, who took 208 wickets in 44 Test matches for Australia, believes the only way the sport can ever avoid this kind of systemic match-fixing is if the harshest possible penalties are meted out to the guilty.

But the champion spinner stressed that Pakistan as a whole should not be kicked out of the international cricket scene for the misdeeds of a few.

“If you kick Pakistan, as a nation, out of cricket, you’re accusing the hundred-plus million people who live in Pakistan of being cheats and frauds,” Triple Ms MacGill said on The Grill Team on Monday.

“What I choose to believe is that in this team and in the sport in general, in Pakistan, there are some bad eggs. Every single person, even if they’ve been coerced into doing this, need to be banned for life - send a very, very clear message.”

“Even if Pakistan gets whipped by Bangladesh for the next five years, at least what we’ll be doing is we’ll be proving to everyone who lives in Pakistan that there’s still heart and soul in their sport,” MacGill said.

As the latest rort continues to send shockwaves throughout the cricket community, Australia has found itself unwittingly dragged into the controversy.

Mazhar Majeed, the match-fixer and player manager at the centre of the most recent spot-fixing rort, was caught on tape describing how he also helped to rig the infamous Sydney Test match in January between Australia and Pakistan which the Aussies won from a virtually impossible position.

And legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne aired his suspicions regarding the nature of that particular result on Triple M Melbourne's Hot Breakfast way back on January 21.

“Unfortunately the captaincy was horrendous from Mohammad Yousuf and he let Australia back into the game,” Warne said.

“Eight fielders on the fence, then nine fielders the next morning, it was like hang on what’s going on here? Why aren’t they trying to win this game?”

“It was absolutely heinous to be honest.”

Triple M’s Damien Fleming backed up former team-mate Warne’s sentiments in relation to that SCG Test on the Hot Breakfast on Monday.

“Some bizarre things happened, starting from the field settings when (Michael) Hussey and (Peter) Siddle were batting and then obviously when Pakistan (were) chasing 176, (they were bowled) out for 139,” said Fleming who took over 200 wickets for Australia in Tests and one-dayers.

“But you hoped that match-fixing and spot-fixing was out of the game and then you hear the word from England that pretty much these no-balls were called by the guy that’s been arrested by Scotland Yard (and) the Pakistan bowlers have bowled those no-balls so it doesn’t look good.”

Fleming explained that match-fixing is rife amongst Asian countries because promising players are educated from a young age on how to manipulate results.

“They groom these young players for greedy captains, say how good you are, give you prizes, give you money, then they ask what the pitch conditions are like,” Fleming said.

“Then they say, right, you’ve gotta get out at this stage or bowl a no-ball and they’re too far down the track (to be saved).”

“The players may change but the people behind (the scenes) don’t change, they (the ICC) need to get them.”

Can international cricket recover from this latest betting scandal?

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• andrew says

  i agree a life ban, but as an added punishment make them attend a match and force them to walk through the crowd so that joe average can show their anger towards match fixers. if they had to do that maybe they would think twice.

  Posted Monday 30 August, 2010 7:56 PM