A Non-Humorous Guide to Dealing with the Spot-Fixing Verdicts

Before you begin, allow me to apologise for this glorified rant, which is quite emotional, and rather profane. I don't apologise for how I feel though, so take that as you will)

 To begin with get off your moral fucking high horse. There is a prevalent sense that the cricketers deserved what they got. I can't disagree with the idea that their actions merited punishment, but to pass judgment from up high on their depravity isn't just ironic, it's a dangerous delusion. 

Corrupt practices are rampant within our society, largely borne out of its reliance on patronage. I have repeatedly invoked the hypocrisy of disobeying traffic laws by all and sundry because it represents the clearest example of a law everyone flouts. But it doesn't end there - jobs, loans, licenses, visas are regularly procured through contacts.

People who are currently passing judgement live on land stolen from Karachi's macheras or Lahore's bastis. And while we’re at it, buying cut price smuggled goods, or exploiting the ridiculously inhumane conditions of our labour force to feed and clothe yourself, or indeed to stay in fancy hotels are also fabulously immoral.

And oh yeah, every time you puff a fat one or drown your sorrows, or even watch a blue ray version of the new Scorcese or even Shahrukh, you’re committing a crime.

These men were a product of our own society. To pretend that their actions constitute evil while your own are borne out of inconvenience is precisely the sort of denial that allows such practices to take root.

Secondly, fuck the po-po.

Or to put it less eloquently, the justice system. As much as introspection is the primary response to this issue, an unquiet rage isn't far behind.

How so?

Forget the fact that other sportsmen have been convicted of fixing without receiving jail terms.

What leaves me all sore and blue is that Salman Butt gets 30 months, while Mazhar Majeed gets 32. That's like sentencing a drug dealer the same amount as the local don.

Butt and the others brought the game in disrepute, but their punishments are added to their sporting bans and the social cost of public and professional disgrace.

But if their punishment is proportional then how are we to make sense of Majeed's sentence: a man who exists as one of the vital functionaries of a global criminal syndicate whose dealings are conservatively estimated at $50 billion?

It seems to tell cricketers that fixing will lead to an end to their careers, while bookies face only a short pause in pursuing their line of work. If it's argued that the rulings were in line with the law then I'm afraid this rancid injustice stems from the entire system.

But I won't be resorting to any hollow slogans railing against said system, because they are an affront to the honesty of my emotions.

To my mind, this ruling represents the same attitude shown towards rogue financial traders - heavy punishment for individuals which can help distract from any uncomfortable questions being asked of the institutions.

And finally, there is hope.

In the 1982 football World Cup, Italy stormed to a memorable win after a sluggish start. The Azzuri’s triumph was engineered by the goals of the waifish Paolo Rossi. Rossi's inclusion in the squad had been controversial since he'd just come off a two-year ban for match fixing. Perhaps it's my biased mind clutching wildly at straws but the similarities with Amir are striking.

Like Amir there was a feeling with Rossi that his naivety had played in his involvement. While Rossi always claimed his innocence, and his conviction was a lot dodgier than Amir’s straightforward guilty plea, there remains a sense of a young, talented sportsman caught in the machinations of sinister men.

What I sincerely hope for is that like Rossi, when Amir has completed his sentence we can all agree that's he's paid for his crimes and welcome him back. It won't be a closure we deserve, because I doubt we'll be changing or even accepting our failings. And it's one that neither Asif nor Butt will likely enjoy because their age, and in Asif’s case prior misadventures, will most likely end any options they might ever have.

But I believe Amir will return, and he will return a hero, because that is a closure he deserves. I don’t want to strike away the severity of his actions, but as several people have pointed out, this young boy was failed as much by his own choices as he was by us.

He, and countless others like him, were failed by a society which forever revels in the exploits of its cricketers, forever uses them as a source of catharsis as pride, forever uses them to construct it’s own identity without providing any institutional safeguards, or indeed any role models to emulate. A cricketer is forever afflicted by chronic insecurity, always a Chairman’s ego or a politician’s grandstanding away from losing their job, or even being banned for life. It’s a bullshit situation to be in, and one that needs to be changed.

There are already a host of narratives emerging which will seek to rationalise this moment, this scandal, in order to allow everyone else to go on with their lives and pretend they have nothing to think about. 

Don’t be a chutiya and join their bandwagon.