Cricket needs Pakistan

When the South African captain Hansie Cronje was accused of match-fixing ten years ago — the beginning of cricket’s current crisis — the overwhelming reaction was shock, even disbelief. We clung to the hope (at best) that the whole story might be fabricated, or (at least) that Cronje was a rare rogue in an otherwise honest game (well, give or take the odd exercise in conning the umpire).

How innocent that reaction seems today. The match-fixing allegations made about Pakistan on the Sunday morning of the Lord’s Test match prompted deep sadness but not disbelief. That illegal gamblers use compliant professional cricketers to fix parts of cricket matches for corrupt spot betting no longer shocks us. It’s much worse than that. It confirms our worst fears: that in the Cronje inquiry the game’s authorities had only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. Rumours of match-fixing have continued to circulate for a decade.