More Matches Could Have Been Fixed on Pakistan's tour of England

The England cricket team will feel justified in not wanting to play the ODI series with Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of the exposure of the spot fixing scandal during the fourth Test at Lord's last year. If Mazhar Majood is to be believed, it was not only in Test cricket but also in the ODIs and Twenty20 that the malice could have been perpetrated once more.

England cricket

Following the revelation by the News of the World tabloid of the spot fixing planned by the Pakistan player agent cum bookie allegedly with Salman Butt, the then Pakistan captain, fast bowlers, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer, in the course of the fourth Test of the England Pakistan series at Lord's, there was a great deal of shock, fury, anguish and large of it was emanated from the England cricketers.

While the startling information came at the end of the Test series, there was still the matter of the Twenty20 and ODI series to be played and many would recall that the England cricketers were not really in the mood to be sparring with their Pakistan counterparts in light of what had transpired at Lord's. Protocol dictated that the series be completed but given the grave nature of the implications, it was hard to see what kind of respect continuing the tour would have generated. With cricket on the field being of the last priority, the eventual panning out of the series was deemed a charade that the Pakistan cricket board seemed keen to complete to maintain their composure while for the England cricket team and for the stunned cricket world, the carrying of the series seemed like the last thing when the immediate agenda would have been to clear the air.

As it turned out, the England cricketers will turn around and claim - although they have successfully moved on since that episode - that they were right in their apprehensions of continuing on with the ODI series after the reported conversation between the undercover reporter and the player agent had the latter attesting to the fact that there were plans on the card to rig the results of one or two of the ODI or Twenty20 matches in addition to the spot fixing drama that went down at Lord's. Had it not been for the News of the World exposure, there could have been more underhand deals that would have been played out which only points to the fact that unless caught, there is no way that the scourge of match fixing can even be tackled.