da bwin： Reactions from former players and officials on the sentences after the spot-fixing trial
ESPNcricinfo staff03-Nov-2011
Michael Vaughan: “More can be done to try and catch more than just the three we’ve seen in court”•Getty Images
For me, there’s still a lot of questions to be answered because they weren’t exposed by any of the cricketing members; they were exposed by the . I still think the ICC could be doing a lot more than they are doing. Unfortunately, the anti-corruption unit is a pretty toothless tiger. They can’t get into the real depth of it all because they haven’t got the resources available to them. I don’t hold it against them; they’re doing the best job they possibly can. They can’t do sting operations like the , they can’t infiltrate these betting networks. They’ve tried their best.
After this case we can say that we are doing something about it and we don’t tolerate any sort of fixing, be it spot or match-fixing, or cheating. From now on, it is a very good deterrent to players, administrators and people who watch the game and try to manipulate it. I would hate to think that I’ve played in any game that we have won because it was fixed. I would rather hope that we won because we had played better.
This is a sad day for Pakistan cricket, a sad day for the cricketers and their families. I can just imagine what the families are going through. In a society where crime pays… Where this sort of thing goes on, an impressionable young man would have got swayed by it. A message has to go that crime does not pay. I feel sad for the cricketers but I feel that you have to punish crime, so that it becomes a punishment for aspirants of the corruption of cricket that crime does not play.
The real possibility of spending time in prison is a further compelling argument for players to distance themselves from those who seek to profit illegally from the game
I hope it sends a shockwave through the game and I’m delighted with the way it’s been handled. I still believe there are more out there and more can be done to try and catch more than just the three we’ve seen in court over the last few weeks.
The sentences could have been harsher. What saddens me is that the ICC didn’t take a stronger line when they had a chance. When they found these players guilty with their own investigation earlier in the year, they were only banned for five years. I don’t understand that kind of logic. If you get caught doing anything like this you should be banned for life and the ICC should get a wake-up call themselves and be more pro-active in rooting out the problem because it won’t go away without pro-active measures. Players are susceptible when they are young to being lured into this kind of thing so [the ICC] has to get the message through when young.
Absolutely the decision is a hard one for the families of the three cricketers. Justice has been done and you’ve got to get rid of the corrupt elements from the game. The verdict will act as a great deterrent for future aspirants. These big fishes need to be taken to task.
We’ve played quite a bit of cricket against them throughout the last two or three years as well, with Test series in Australia as well as over in England and some one-day series as well. I definitely didn’t suspect anything of what’s come out over the last year or so. Whether it’s jail, whether it’s a life sentence, there’s no doubt the punishments are very severe for doing the wrong thing.