The ICC and cricket boards are not serious about spot fixing

Alan Bull in The Guardian


 
If the ECB wants to demonstrate how serious it is about tackling spot-fixing there are better ways to do it than shouting down the people who are presenting the evidence.


Seems like it was Mark Wood’s bad luck to draw a short straw last week. The day after al-Jazeera released the second part of their investigation into spot-fixing in cricket Wood was put up to talk to the press. He said the accusations reminded him of “the boy who cried wolf”. Maybe Wood always used to fall asleep before his parents made it to the end of the book. Right now, five months after the first part of al-Jazeera’s expose, we are still waiting to see whether the danger they are shouting about really exists, but Wood, like everyone else in English cricket, will hope this story does not end with everyone looking the other way while the wolf eats up the sheep.

Al-Jazeera’s second film was more grounded than the first. It’s built around the fact that its source, Aneel Munawar, accurately forecast the score in 25 out of the 26 passages of play in 15 different international matches. Al-Jazeera says independent analysis shows the odds he could have done that by guesswork alone are 9.2m to one. The case is not perfect; the one big problem with it is al-Jazeera’s lawyers do not seem to trust it enough to let its journalists release the names of the players involved. But there is enough evidence there now that the story should not be swiftly dismissed.

Which, unfortunately, seems to be what some of the authorities want to do. The England and Wales Cricket Board said al-Jazeera’s information was “poorly prepared and lacks clarity and corroboration”. The tone of its response was all wrong. If the ECB wants to demonstrate how serious it is about tackling spot-fixing there are better ways to do it than shouting down the people who are presenting the evidence. The ECB’s statement seemed to put it on the other side of this problem to the journalists working to expose it. Since then the conversation around the investigation has turned into a slanging match about which side is more credible than the other.

Al-Jazeera did not help by throwing back blows of its own. “The ICC, together with certain national cricket boards and their supporters in the media, has reacted to our documentary with dismissals and attacks on the messenger,” it said. “We are particularly struck by what appears to be a refusal from certain quarters to even accept the possibility that players from Anglo-Saxon countries could have engaged in the activities exposed by our programme.” That attitude may have been common once and there may still be lingering hints of it around now. But anyone who holds it is a fool.The Spin: sign up and get our weekly cricket email.

At this point the question is not whether people are spot-fixing cricket matches but who is doing it and how often. In the last 10 years bowlers, batsmen, and captains, umpires, coaches, groundstaff and administrators have been caught and banned for fixing, and they have come from England, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. You should not need any more evidence that this is a universal problem. But, if you do, Cricinfo published some last week. It was the story of a corrupt approach made to the Canadian wicketkeeper Hamza Tariq at the 2011 World Cup.

Tariq explains how a friend of a friend invited him out for drinks. The man was a cricketer, which is how they got to know each other. When they went out a second time the man brought three more friends along. They bought Tariq dinner and drinks, and offered, later in the evening, to fix him up with a woman. It was only later, after an officer from the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit intervened, that Tariq realised they were grooming him. Tariq was a fringe player from an associate team but last I looked the weaknesses those fixers were trying to identify and exploit – fondness for drink, money, sex – are pretty common in countries where they play Test cricket, too.

That 2011 World Cup, it seems now, fell right in the middle of an era when spot-fixing was rife. Mohammad Amir, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, Mervyn Westfield, Lou Vincent, Danish Kaneria: all those cases happened in 2010 and 2011. It was also around that time, al-Jazeera says, that Munawar first became involved in fixing.

It also says the ICC has known about Munawar ever since, which is one reason why it is reluctant to hand over all the information it has but would prefer to give it to Interpol instead. “We have become increasingly concerned at the ICC’s ability and resolve to police the game.”

It is not the only one to say this. Remember, Brendon McCullum criticised the ACU’s “very casual approach” in 2016. The head of the ACU, Alex Marshall, argues the unit is much stronger now and the sport has never invested so many resources in fighting corruption. But then, at the same time Marshall is saying that, the Pakistan Cricket Board has appointed Wasim Akram to its new cricket committee. Akram, you may remember, was one of a number of cricketers investigated by the Qayyum report into fixing in the 1990s. The Qayyum report concluded he “cannot be said to be above suspicion”.

The PCB chairman, Ehsan Mani, was able to justify the appointment by arguing that other players who were named in the Qayyum report were allowed to carry on working in international cricket. And he is right. One of them, Mushtaq Ahmed, was England’s spin-bowling coach for years, even though Qayyum concluded “there are sufficient grounds to cast strong doubt” on him, too. At this point indignant words do not do much to demonstrate anyone’s commitment to taking the problem seriously enough.

The leggie who was one of us

It's hard not to admire the story and spirit of a club spinner who believed he would one day make it to the big leagues - and briefly did

Jarrod Kimber

January 16, 2013

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	Bryce McGain saw the darkness but refused to enter it © Getty Images Enlarge

 

I grew up in the People's Democratic Republic of Victoria. I was indoctrinated early. Dean Jones was better than Viv Richards in Victoria, and had a bigger ego as well. Darren Berry kept wicket with the softest hands and hardest mouth of any keeper I have ever seen. Ian Harvey had alien cricket. Matthew Elliott could score runs with his eyes shut. The first time I saw Dirk Nannes bowl, I felt like Victoria had thawed a smiley caveman. And even though I never saw Slug Jordan play, I enjoyed his sledging for years on the radio. 

So my favourite player has to be a Victorian. But my other love is cricket's dark art, legspin. I wish I knew whether it was being a legspinner that made me love legspin, or seeing a legspinner that made me want to bowl it. Everything in cricket seemed easy to understand when I was a kid, but not legspin. And that's where I ended up. I'm not a good legspinner, far from it, but I think that any legspinner, even the useless club ones that bowl moon balls, have something special about them. 

The first legspinner I ever fell for was Abdul Qadir. I'm not sure how I saw him, or what tour it was, but even before I understood actual legspin, I could see something special about him. His action was theatrical madness and I loved it.

Then the 1992 World Cup came. I was 12, it was in Melbourne (read Australia), and this little pudgy-faced kid was embarrassing the world's best. I was already a legspinner by then, but Mushie made it cool. This was the age where we were told spinners had no place; it was pace or nothing. Limited-overs cricket was going to take over from Tests, and spinners had no role in it. Mushie made that all look ridiculous as he did his double-arm twirl to propel his killer wrong'uns at groping moustached legends.

By worshipping Mushie I was ahead of the curve, because from then on, in Melbourne, Australia, and eventually England, Shane Warne changed the world. Mushie and Qadir had made legspinning look like it was beyond the realms of understanding, but Warne made it look like something humans could do, even if he wasn't human himself.

It was through Warne I got to Anil Kumble. He bowled legspin in such an understated way. It was completely different to Warne. His wrist wasn't his weapon, so he had to use everything else he had. Warne was the Batmobile, Kumble an Audi A4. Anyone could love Warne, his appeal was obvious. But to love Kumble you needed to really get legspin. The legspinner's leggie.

When I was young, my second favourite was a guy called Craig Howard, who virtually doesn't exist. Howard was the Victorian legspinner who Warne thought was better than him. To my 13- and 14-year-old eyes, Howard was a demon. His legspin was fast and vicious, but it was his wrong'un that was something special. Mushie and Qadir had obvious wrong'uns, subtle wrong'uns, and invisible wrong'uns. Howard had a throat-punching wrong'un. It didn't just beat you or make you look silly; it attacked you off a length and flew up at you violently. I've never seen another leggie who can do that, but neither could Howard. Through bad management and injury he ended up as an office-working offspinner in Bendigo.

But good things can come from office work. It gave me my favourite cricketer of all time. A person who for much of his 20s was a struggling club cricketer no one believed in. But he believed. Even as he played 2nds cricket, moved clubs, worked in IT for a bank, something about this man made him continue. A broken marriage and shared custody of his son. His day job had him moving his way up the chain. The fact that no one wanted him for higher honours. His age. Cameron White's legspin flirtation. And eventually the Victorian selectors, who didn't believe that picking a man over 30 was a good policy.

Through all that, Bryce McGain continued to believe he was good enough. Through most of it, he probably wasn't. He was a club spinner.

Bryce refused to believe that, and using the TV slow-mo and super-long-lens close-ups for teachers, he stayed sober, learnt from every spinner he could and forced himself to be better. He refused to just be mediocre, because Bryce had a dream. It's a dream that every one one of us has had. The difference is, we don't believe, we don't hang in, we don't improve, and we end up just moving on.

Bryce refused.

	The world would be a better place if more people saw McGain as a hero and not a failure. He just wanted to fulfil his dream, and that he did against all odds is perhaps one of the great cricket stories of all time

At 32 he was given a brief chance before Victoria put him back in club cricket. Surely that was his last chance. But Bryce refused to believe that. And at the age of 35 he began his first full season as Victoria's spinner. It was an amazing year for Australian spin. It was the first summer without Warne.

Almost as a joke, and because I loved his story, I started writing on my newly formed blog that McGain should be playing for Australia. He made it easy by continually getting wickets, and then even Terry Jenner paid attention. To us legspinners, Jenner is Angelo Dundee, and his word, McGain's form and the circumstances meant that Bryce suddenly became the person most likely.

Stuart MacGill was finished, Brad Hogg wanted out, and Beau Casson was too gentle. Bryce was ready at the age of 36 to be his country's first-choice spinner. Then something happened. It was reported in the least possibly dramatic way ever. McGain had a bad shoulder, the reports said. He may miss a warm-up game.

No, he missed more than that. He missed months. As White, Jason Krezja, Nathan Hauritz and even Marcus North played before him as Australia's spinners. This shoulder problem wouldn't go away. And although Bryce's body hadn't had the workload of the professional spinners, bowling so much at his advanced age had perhaps been too much for him. He had only one match to prove he was fit enough for a tour to South Africa. He took a messy five-for against South Australia and was picked for South Africa. He didn't fly with the rest of the players, though, as he missed his flight. Nothing was ever easy for Bryce.

His second first-class match in six months was a tour match where the South African A team attacked Bryce mercilessly. Perhaps it was a plan sent down by the main management, or perhaps they just sensed he wasn't right, but it wasn't pretty. North played as the spinner in the first two Tests. For the third Test, North got sick, and it would have seemed like the first bit of good fortune to come to Bryce since he hurt his shoulder.

At the age of 36, Bryce made his debut for Australia. It was a dream come true for a man who never stopped believing. It was one of us playing Test cricket for his country. It was seen as a joke by many, but even the cynics had to marvel at how this office worker made it to the baggy green.

I missed the Test live as I was on holidays and proposing to my now-wife. I'm glad I missed it. Sure, I'd wanted Bryce to fulfill his dream as much as I'd wanted to fulfill most of mine, but I wouldn't have liked to see what happened to him live. South Africa clearly saw a damaged player thrown their way and feasted on him. His figures were heartbreaking: 0 for 149. Some called it the worst debut in history.

I contacted him after it, and Bryce was amazingly upbeat. He'd make it back, according to him. He was talking nonsense. There was no way back for him. Australia wouldn't care that his shoulder wasn't right; he couldn't handle the pressure. His body, mind and confidence had cracked under pressure. He was roadkill.

But Bryce wouldn't see it that way, and that's why he's my favourite cricketer. I wasn't there for all the times no one believed in him, for all those times his dream was so far away and life was in his way. But I was there now, at what was obviously the end. Bryce McGain saw the darkness but refused to enter it. That's special. That is how you achieve your dreams when everything is against you.

Before I moved to London to embark on my cricket-writing career, I met Bryce for a lunch interview. It was my first interview with a cricketer. We were just two former office workers who had escaped. At this stage Casson had been preferred over him for the tour to the West Indies. In the Shield final, Bryce's spinning finger had opened up after a swim in the ocean. He was outbowled by Casson and the selectors didn't take him. Surely this was it. Why would anyone pick a 36-year-old who had been below his best in his most important game?

Bryce knew he may have blown it. But he still believed, of course. We were just two former office workers with dreams. Two guys talking about legspin. Two guys just talking shit and hoping things would work out.

At the time it was just cool to have lunch with this guy I admired, but now I look back and know I had lunch with the player who would become my favourite cricketer of all time.

The world would be a better place if more people saw McGain as a hero and not a failure. Shane Warne was dropped on this planet to be a god. Bryce McGain just wanted to fulfil his dream, and that he did against all odds is perhaps one of the great cricket stories of all time.

Bryce is one of us, the one who couldn't give up.

The perils of imitating Shane Warne

Shoaib Naveed | 27th December, 2011

Richie Benaud, the celebrated leg spinner also known for his legendary one-liners in the commentary box, once said, “a bleeding ring finger at the end of every training session was not only normal but essential for my development as a wrist spinner.”

Being one of the most influential and highly-regarded leg-break bowlers at a time when leg-spin was both rare and misunderstood, Benaud knew what he was talking about. He recalls spending most of his late teenage years at the New South Wales Colts’ nets. He would practice landing his stock delivery on the same spot for hours on end.

“Four times a week I would turn up at exactly quarter to three with Billy Watson (who coincidentally would go on to play for Australia himself) and practice in the same net.”

Numerous others would show up at their own leisure to replace Billy, but Benaud would keep practicing until the last ray of light had faded into yet another Sydney summer evening.

“It (leg-spin bowling) is perhaps the hardest and most complex facet of cricket”, Benaud said and the “easiest thing starting out would be to keep it simple and true to your ability.”

The end of that statement is perhaps more significant than it has ever been, for the modern day leg-spinner has to learn not only the complex art, but also to grow out of the shadow of the greatest spin wizard of them all — Shane Warne.

The apparent simplicity of the genius, with his easy flowing action, unprecedented success and captivating personality seems to offer the perfect road map for an aspiring leg spinner.

In the years since Warne’s retirement, talented young bowlers have devoted their energies to modelling themselves on the brilliant Victorian, misguidedly expecting such an ordeal to be rewarding. The truth, however, truth is far closer to the contrary. Such pursuits often give birth to “spinners” who rarely turn the ball or for that matter, possess any of the other bamboozling variations (flipper, top-spinner, googly) so essential to the authentic leggie’s bag of tricks.

The explanation to this fascinating conundrum lies in both the sheer inimitable genius of Warne and the finer aspects of the leg-spinning trait itself.

Leg-spin, unlike any of the other bowling traits, does not require a high-arm delivery release. The bowler, instead, is required to have the shoulder stretch a bit to the side at the point of delivery. This is due to the peculiar and extremely strenuous way the ball is released from the wrist (the flick).

Abdul Qadir ripping a leggie (notice the arm to the side)

The round arm action makes it much easier for the bowler’s wrist to make the necessary flicking movement, transitioning from facing the sky to facing the bowler at the time of release. It also allows for the maximum number of revolutions to be imparted on the ball, resulting in the drift and fast turn, which are crucial to the lethal leg break.

What determines the amount of turn more than any thing else, however, is the pivot of the legs of the spinner. This pivot has to be strong because it needs to drag the entire body with it, the rule being that the greater the momentum the greater the turn. The pivot is greatly aided by a side-on action. If the bowler is completely side-on in the delivery stride, half his work is already done for his body can then easily be dragged with the momentum generated by the motion of delivery.

Mushtaq Ahmed and Devendra Bishoo completely side-on – making it easier to pivot

The authentic leg-spinner’s action then requires an equal amount of work to be done by the front arm and the bowling arm, resulting in quick shifts in momentum that appear a bit haphazard in real time. This leads to “funny” actions being associated with leg-break bowlers.

My whole analysis goes out of the window when you look at Shane Warne. Having the most insignificant of jumps, Warne’s action is much more front-on compared to the traditional leg-spinner. His action doesn’t involve the extravagant movements associated with the likes of Qadir or Mushtaq and is in fact so fluent and easy on the eye that it often appears deceptively lethargic.

Shane Warne gets much more front-on and also avoids the extravagant momentum shifts to display one of the most graceful bowling actions .

“How, then, did the magician conjure the wicked turn that mesmerised so many?” Mike Gatting would surely ask. And the answer really can only be attributed to the oddity of Warne’s natural ability. His shoulder and wrist, both freakishly strong and flexible, were able to impart a vicious spin on the ball that others will find impossible to replicate.

This freakish nature is demonstrated even more clearly when you notice his variations. The top spinner and googly, the most common leg-spinning variations, both require the ball to be released with a very different wrist position compared to the stock ball, needing the back of the hand to end up facing the batsman (top spinner) or the ground (googly) after release. This is an extreme change that normal bowlers cannot achieve by a simple adjustment of the wrist. A change in the point of delivery is essential to bowling these variations. Where initially the shoulder stuck out to the side, the arm is now closer to the head for the variations. Compare, for instance, Qadir’s top spinner to his normal action shown above.

Abdul Qadir’s action; much more round arm for the change ups.

Qadir was not alone in needing to make this switch. Almost all leg-spinners who have versatility, so crucial to being a complete wrist spinner, have to rely on this slight give-away to land their change-up deliveries effectively.

Kaneria Legbreak Kaneria Googly (Blue:Head, Red:Line of Release)

Now compare this to Warne, and the difference is evident.

Shane Warne Legbreak Shane Warne Googly

In fact, comparing Shane Warne’s repertoire just confirms why it was so hard to pick the great spinner, who was able to churn out his entire array of deliveries without the slightest hint of change in his action or release point. His strong shoulder and unusually flexible wrists bore the brunt of the change up every time.

(Left to Right/Top to Bottom: Leggie, Wrong-un, Flipper, Slider)

Therefore, while Warne’s ability to turn the ball and perfectly camouflage his variations is nothing short of breathtaking, one must at the same time keep in mind the anatomy and natural gift of the great spinner that frankly can’t be imitated. With his destructive attitude and knack of getting under the batsman’s skin, Warne is definitely the embodiment of an attacking spinner.

Aspiring newcomers have a lot to learn from his attitude but would be better suited to look towards the traditional greats in Qadir and Benaud when it comes to modelling and reconstructing bowling actions.