So Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif bowl no-balls on demand and Salman Butt, as the captain, butts them a few buts. Big deal. I don’t get what the uproar is all about honestly. If you have a white tiger in your zoo, you don’t expect it to smell of fresh roses– now do you? Then why for crying out loud do you expect players of a country that siphons off relief money, a country whose entire team has been shown to be corrupt by Justice Qauyyum, where all the players (save those at the end of their careers and hence worthless) proven to be crooks by their own legal system were let go with minor raps on the knuckles, to be as honest as Manoj Kumar? Of course they are as bent as the proverbial fiddler’s elbow (or as they say in Pakistan as bent as Shoaib Akthar’s arm at moment of delivery) and we all love them for it. So I say well-done Amir-Asif for reminding us once again as to the gentle delights that Pakistan brings to the world of cricket.
What? You say they have cheated? I don’t think anyone can claim to have been defrauded here unless that person is Zardari (last in the news for not paying the government of Turkey USD 8000 for four female “guides” supplied to him for “educational” purpose). He is the only one who has been hard-done by, having been deprived of his ten-per-cent per-transaction cut. And he has realized that too, asking for a detailed probe into the whole incident [Link] showing the same alacrity and seriousness with which he investigated the 26/11 attacks.
Spot-fixing is of course a term that many people are still not familiar with. A very simple way to explain it to children of the 80s would be to think of Gold Spot where the “gold” is actually real. In spot betting, rather than betting on the results of entire matches, people bet on the results of certain events—like what religion will Mohammed Yousuf belong to today, what type of organism is growing in Akthar’s nether regions, whether Afridi will bite the ball in the morning or in post-tea session or how many rules of English grammer would Inzamam Ul Haq break in his post-match speech or which room would the coach’s dead body be found in or when in the evening would Younis Khan announce his retirement or when at night would Shoaib Malik….well you get the picture. Now unscrupulous bookies (there is but one kind) try to rip off people by fixing these events beforehand by colluding with players.
In this case, as the headlines “Three Balls That Shook The World” cry out, a bookie was caught fixing, beyond a room for doubt, no-balls being bowled by Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif (Danish Kaneria [also known in some quarters as the Danish cartoon] had been caught spot-fixing a few months ago in England). What of course made me delighted was the respect with which the bookie spoke to one of the world’s most excited cricketers and how, like a Pakistani lion, he roared loudly in response.
Majeed then explained that the third no-ball would come in the first over that teen wonder boy Amir got to deliver to an England right-hander, after one of the opening two left-handers had been dismissed.
Just to convince us Amir was onside Majeed telephoned the young star at his hotel. “Are you sleeping f***er?” he asked crudely. Amir confirmed that’s what he was trying to do.
“Ok, sleep,” said Majeed. “We’ve spoken about everything before anyway. Ok, don’t mind. You sleep’
Now people here know how much I am in awe of Mohammed Asif. He is the kind of Pakistani cricketer I grew up admiring—- supremely talented on the field and even more talented off it, storing more drugs in his travel bag than a Pfizer godown and playing models like Veena Malik (She has spilled the beans on her ex-dilrooba here) like a Veena (he evidently took money from her and didnt return it). In short, total stud. Not like our wannabes like Sreesanth and Munaf Darling, who despite their best attempts, will never even come close to Asif in any respect—– pace, swing or cut.
Of late though, I had taken a keen interest in the prodigious Mohammed Amir. At age 18, he shows every potential to be one of the world’s leading pace-bowlers. With this incident, he has shown conclusively that he is a chip off the old Pakistani block, someone who even at such a tender age, has mastered the dual art of slipping deliveries through batsman’s defenses and currency notes inside his pocket, with the kind of flair that is oh so typically Pakistan.
You know what would shock me though? If the Pakistani media does not blame this on the “Hinduyon ki zehniyat” and the Jewish-Hindu conspiracy, or the Pakistani board does not do a few eye-wash slaps on Salman’s Butt and then business is resumed as normal or if Asif and Amir are not made to contribute to the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Relief Fund or if Javed Miandad (whose samdhiji is the Bill Gates of betting) does not point fingers at India regarding match-fixing or if the Kolkata Knight Riders does not keep wringing their hands as to why the IPL, a tournament of great probity and transparency, needs the Pakistanis to bring in their expertise and skill to the league.
But till that happens, I am fine. I am happy. And all is right with the world.
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
First
Glad you wrote on this topic!!! I would add one more reason to be in “awe” of them…The fact that they chose the traditional headquarters of cricket – Lords as their venue for staging their spectacle!!
@Bong bhai
Great article. Keep writing. You are at par with our very own Pakistani satirist. Nadeem F Paracha.
You can read NFPs satire by visiting the link below. The one below is a masters piece and makes it even more important in the light of the current match fixing allegations.
http://www.chowk.com/articles/11763
Junaid,
That was an amazingly funny piece. Thanks.
Are we getting the answers for Shahrukh Khan supporting the pakistani players during the latest IPL matches!!!well narrated in this blog!! we simply thought it was a promotional gimmick for his new movie”My name Khan”
Nothing is bad in the country where everything is BAD!!!
You have to be a Roman when you are in ROME…US will support you!!!
This blog is a whistleblower! And GB is partly Sherlock Holmes, of the tabloid kind. We have exposed many shady things in the past- from Cricinfo’s dealings with Chappell during the Ganguly years to SRK’s unusual support of Pakistani players during last IPL. Honestly, not many people would have dared to touch on such sensitive issues from religion to cricket to the mosque. But RTDM is well, RTDM. And we have always been vindicated. A 100% record in everything till now.
About the episode, it just made me laugh a lot. I just laughed harder when I read this post. Excellent GB.
@GB
NFP is one of the last remaining icons of middle class Pakistani liberals of the 1970s.
Read the rest of his satires and it will send you in fits of laughter.
I am so proud of him.
Dada, you can be reaaallly nasty , when you want to. 🙂
excllent stuff!
“like what religion will Mohammed Younus belong to today, what type of organism is growing in Akthar’s nether regions, whether Afridi will bite the ball in the morning or in post-tea session or how many rules of English grammer would Inzamam Ul Haq break in his post-match speech or which room would the coach’s dead body be found in or when in the evening would Younis Khan announce his retirement or when at night would Shoaib Malik…”
LOL! How do you think of all this!
Junaid thanks for introducing me to Nadeem!
@GB:
“GrammAr”.
🙂
Here’s a Zardari Salute coming your way for –
like what religion will Mohammed Younus belong to today &
the link Pak owes Turkey 8000 USD for Zardari’s female guides
Truly Enlightening 🙂
Methinks both Majeed and Amir being Punjus, Majeed must have used b…..c…d as a term of endearment. With all that money in his Swiss bank account Asif couldn’t return Veena’s paltry loan? Itni bhi kanjoosi kyon?
As an aside, Wasim may have the reasons why Indian players go the Irfan Pathan and Munaf Darling way:
http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=160224
Why dont we have bookies who will fix like, “Next ball, Munaf will bowl at 160 kmph”.
Well, they already have blamed India. Y’day on Times Now I heard someone saying that Indian cricketers make a lot of money by playing in the IPL but Paistani players don’t. The Pakistanis want to make as much money as the Indians, and so they do all this. The solution, according to the old gentleman, was to let Pakistani cricketers participate in the IPL and get rich too.
Great! One more right wing anti pakistan rant. Indian cricketers and cricket are paragons of virtue and absolutely incorruptible. no?
bhaiya woh chhodo, yeh dekho –
http://getahead.rediff.com/report/2010/aug/26/career-trouble-brewing-for-indian-institute-of-management-and-planning-in-hyderabad.htm
Hopefully, finally!
OK, this is off topic ….. Fake IPL player’s identity has been revealed, turns out he is a Bong settled in B’lore …. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/iplarticleshow/6452017.cms
And Paracha is a legend in Pak journalism …. I read his column in Dawn & he never fails to strike a chord.
On the lines of SaaS – Software-as-a-Service —
Cricket-as-a-Service : Pakistani Cricket Board with the Pakistani cricketers could start a new service where you can dial while live match and ask for any kind of offering .. no ball, wide ball etc etc. This will hep the cash strapped PCB come up with a new revenue model vis-a-vis Indian IPL. They can certainly boast of the ingenuity in this case.
Nice article.
The Zardari aspect was very horrifying.
dead body of coach poor taste
“bent as Shoaib Akthar’s arm at moment of delivery”
Actually,that would imply that Shoaib Akhtar does not chuck. Chucking is defined as straightening of the arm, not bending.
But as usual, lovely post.
GB, you had interviewed fake IPL player when he was incognito. Many readers genuinely believed that FIPL was you.
Now that he has come out, can we expect a full post on him / ananlysis of his work and why he ducked out.
what about sialkot lynching of 2 teen brothers by mob in Pak land of pure.
that was funny.
although before getting all high and mighty on our moral horse..we should wait and see what more comes out of this. match fixing is a global phenomenon and no country is immune to it.
who knows yuvraj maybe faking it all when he actually is IN FORRRRRMMM !!!
I agree with you GB, the latest incident is hardly surprising. As for blaming India they will do so as soon as ICC (headed by an Indian) takes any action. I also agree with Junaid that NFP’s blog makes for wonderful reading. The very existence of people like NFP stops me from giving up on Pakistan.
@yourfan2: am curious as to what part of ‘Cricinfo’s dealings with Chappell during the Ganguly years’ were ‘shady’.
http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/08/pcb-mulls-over-legalizing-match-fixing-to-offer-it-as-service/
Here goes the satire on this !!!
Awesomeness….no words to describe. ROTFL.
n btw…glad that the Fake IPL guy ain’t you..he has revealed himself..
Tauba-Tauba!! What the world is coming to? A poor sports body can’t even make money from new sources of revenue. It is a well known fact that PCB is a cash strapped body, and its sources of revenue are drying up, since no team wants to play a series in Pakistan, unless their idea of an adventure is being chilling out in the team bus being while being showered with Kalashnikov bullets. So let us be in peace and “fix” our funds! Bloody infidels! 🙂
@Darshan
“One more right wing anti pakistan rant”
You have to be a right wing to criticize Pakistan’s way of functioning or what they have brought onto the cricketing world? And criticizing our own country makes you a liberal. Right??
Get a life dude…
Hahaha, brilliant. Fix, Ban, Return, Don’t Rinse, Just Repeat.
Excellent stuff as usual 🙂
Quick question: “like what religion will Mohammed Younus belong to today, what type of organism is growing in Akthar’s nether regions”
Don’t you mean ‘Mohammed Yousuf’ (formerly Yousuf Youhanna) rather than ‘Mohammed Younus’ (am assuming you meant Younus Khan!)
Well said.
They train their players early and well, to throw the balls and to throw matches!
And doing this at Lord’s was disgusting to say the least. Come on, Lord’s is the mecca of cricket(hopefully they will understand what mecca means)!
@Darshan
“One more right wing anti pakistan rant”
One more Paki ass-licking and ass-sniffing lover’s grievance.
GB at your best. By the way, please change Mohammad Younus to Mohammad Yousuf. Wouldn’t bother had it not been the name of a rather incorruptible Nobel prize winning Bangladeshi economist.
Anyway, only you can come up with lines like these … and you didn’t even spare poor Shoaib Malik’s nights. Btw, Sania just defeated a Portuguese qualifier in the US Open 1st round. Any comments?
Darshan, aisa comment likhoge to hoga tumhara dharshan.
And by the way, there was a news piece yesterday that said that some sections of Pakistani media (possibly the blood brothers of India TV on the other side of the border) said that Majeed was manipulated by Indian bookies who are controlled by Indian cricket boards. “Yeh saazish hai Pakistani tez ballers ko panapne na dene ki.”
The latest allegation of match-fixing against Pakistani cricket team is said to be part of a greater psy-ops against Pakistan in which Indian intelligence and a Western secret service men jointly staged a drama to de-moralize the Pakistani nation.
According to an investigation conducted by Pakistan Observer, the two Asian-origin men behind the conspiracy were acting on behalf of their masters with the aim to malign Pakistan and initiate a campaign to disgrace Pakistanis at home and abroad.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=49612
Dunno whether to laugh or cry.
mohd azharuddin is the biggest chor and traitor. he should be stoned to death under sharia law. bcoz he got away it encouraged other fixers.
Nice article.
Not to be disrespectful, but most of your news/non-fiction satires seem to be a mashup of what’s on wiki and other satire pages…
btw…should be the spanish fiddler’s bow…El Bow.
Smartly written stuff…but we are ridiculing the fallen (I mean the lay Pakistani fan not the establishment, cricket or otherwise!!!!)…and I have a soft corner for that prodigal 18 year old 😦
hi GB,
As usual, your scathing humour and tongue-in-cheek brand of writing makes this rather pathetic and sordid affair funny (at some level); you use satire so effectively to play down, what is, in effect another low point for world cricket.
I had a suggestion, though:
Much of your writing is inspired by Pakistan, and the tragicomic news emanating from that tragic, ruined nation.
It would be good if you could also, then spare a blog post for the floods and to ruminate on the horrific levels of devastation that it has wrought. That the scale of the tragedy is unprecedented in this century is true, yet paradoxically, donor apathy has also crippled the relief efforts further, making the work of saving people and averting greater disaster that much more difficult.
You are an influential voice, and a rational person. If you were to suggest sensible and transparent fora for donating money to the cause, I believe people would listen to you. (both unicef and msf have dedicated Pakistan floods donor channels open now)
The scale of the tragedy is immense, and every little bit helps, and everyone has an obligation to help.
I know this sounds patronising and authoritative, but your power to influence people and make them think could perhaps be put to good use here.
Regards,
ND.
@ND,
Let me start out by saying that my heart goes out to the people affected by the floods in Pakistan. Second, let me tell you, with nothing but honesty, that I am afraid you over-estimate my power to influence people or even the reach of this blog. As to “covering” the Pakistani floods, this blog is just a place where I put down “what I feel” and not a place for “reporting”. As to the Pakistani floods, I do not have anything to say except to ask people to donate. Even there, I doubt people would donate just because I asked them to—-whoever has it in his mind to donate already has, those who don’t …won’t.
With respect to reasons why Pakistan has gotten so little aid, there have been well-written posts in places like Sepia Mutiny and I do not feel I have anything new to say on this issue. Lest it be not misunderstood, my silence isn’t because this is Pakistan (for instance there was nothing I wrote about Haiti) but simply because I have no “opinion” or nothing to add to what has already been said.
Well, I really pity the flood victims in Pakistan!!
When I shared my condolence to my pakistani friend in singapore, he was saying that the flood is the answer for all the mistakes the people made.He added that the flood affected area was too modern like the girls wearing short sleeves/sexy pants!!! too much of western fashions!!! and there also homosexuality practiced as he himself was experienced it and escaped from that place and that’s why the flood has killed these people….and he says this is the act of God!
three balls that shook the world….hahaha
awesome post there GB. Enjoyed thoroughly.
In my earlier comment I had said that Pakistan will soon blame India for the scandal. Well it didn’t take long. Pakistani media is now blaming RAW (sic) for engineering the whole thing! http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sCIJTy6znaw/TH69SnR7W4I/AAAAAAAAAIg/tD4CCSOAGWQ/s1600/DailyMail-Frontpage.gif
@Sri
See this is what is wrong with the Pakis in general. Now u take an indian in general who is abroad in places like Singapore or the US. While their outlook about the broader aspect of life is suppossed to be more liberal, these guys in general have a mindset that is regressive. I live in the Middle East and a all of these chaps though individually delightful creatures tend to think the same in matters of religion, india, women, etc.
Thats the problem with the country. Even education is not able to penetrate their psyche. While we have our own deplorable issues like dowry and khaps at least these views are more restricted to our immediate family/ caste or such other microcosm.
The general view of these guys is that anything that is apart from their world view in general should be oblitereated.
Here’s another delightful link.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/cricket/top-stories/Pakistan-defends-tainted-trio-hints-at-Indian-hand-in-fixing-saga/articleshow/6483650.cms
A question that rises in my mind is that is everything that is wrong across the border our fault? I suppose the recent floods too were a RAW-engineered natural disaster (I hope this doesn’t give them the idea).
Well, the RAW was not responsible for the Pakistani floods, but surely the CIA was responsible.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2579358/posts
That’s a good one about India being responsible for the match-fixing scandal and the CIA for the floods. Classic behaviour of laying the blame at someone else’s door.
Raw gets a raw deal as usual. Sheila dixit is asking for divine intervention for the successful completion of CWG. GB, any post on that?
They fixed matches after being catch by Police.. really daring people.
Like the post Title.