Cricket has no consensus on the major issues let alone agreement on the solutions

Cricket has taken some severe hits over the years but none compares to what has happened this week. I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams could imagine that any player would behave in such a fashion to be sent to jail.

Interestingly, while there is unanimous agreement that everything has to be done to deter the players from becoming involved in corruption, there is no consensus on the major issues let alone agreement on the solutions.

Unfortunately, I only have some thoughts on the some of those unanswered questions.

I don’t have definitive answers. Some of the many unanswered questions are:

Have the administrators done everything possible to identify corrupt players? If not, what more can they do?

Are there any corrupt officials?

Has the ICC done everything possible to identify and punish corrupt officials?

Would cricket lovers have had more confidence in finding solutions to corruption if a number of ICC members not stopped former Australian Prime Minister John Howard from joining the board?

What is the appropriate punishment for breaches of the ICC laws? That is, should there be the same punishment for spot fixing as for match fixing?

Will the appropriate punishment for a player act as a deterrent for other players?

If a player becomes involved in corruption because of threats to his family should that be taken into consideration when determining the player’s punishment?

Should cricketers and administrators found guilty of any form of corruption be banned from any involvement in cricket for life?

Perhaps the one thing that we can agree on, is, it was disappointing that the News of the World newspaper caught Butt, Asif and Amir and not the ICCC corruption unit.

Courtesy: Tony Greig