poorcricketfan wrote:Please, please let this not be true.
ddb wrote:Not a good feeling coming from any of this, makes me feel a bit sick in side.
I think any real cricket lover is tonight praying that this is nothing, because two of the players implicated are the glimmering hope of Pakistans test future. If it is true, the punishment should smash down on the guilty like an iron fist. I have no tolerance for match fixers, and they should pay with their careers. If this means an 18 year old future legend goes, so be it. We have to teach the world a lesson and Amir will become a martyr for the cause of maintaining the integrity of the sport.
I dont buy this young and naive thing, and I also dont buy the argument that 3 no balls is trivial. If you dont wear the badge of your country on your chest and try to do your best ever second, then sorry you dont deserve to play International cricket!
I just hope this is a "no smoke without fire" conclusion that some tabloid hacks have made up from the fact that the Pakistan bowlers may have done something suspicious, but were not on the payroll. After all many bowlers have struggled to get their ryhthm on run up due to the Lords slope, maybe the extent of the no balls is due to this and an unwarrented link has been made?
The evidence does add up though.... Kamran Akmal getting out for 3 straight ducks, dropping catches everywhere? Who was the Pakistan fielder who caught one in the 2nd then seemed to let the ball drop out his hands? It may even explain why Salman Butt refused to leave the wicket earlier!
If your up there, let that be not be true. I fear Pakistan test cricket will be at deaths door if their two world class players have "turned to the dark side".