Fixing Scandal!!!!!

[Burgey]

The biggest development in this sorry tale in the past few days is we can all call Chris Cairns by name.

 

[Burgey]

I wonder which imbecile waived privilege over that conversation with a lawyer.

 

[hendrix]

I wonder which imbecile waived privilege over that conversation with a lawyer.

It's because the lawyer was a witness and has been arrested for perverting the course of justice, which I assume means he allegedly lied under oath.

 

[viriya]

Didn't realize Tuffey made a statement:
Daryl Tuffey 'unequivocally' denies match fixing allegations - Match-fixing investigation - NZ Herald News

 

[Burgey]

It's because the lawyer was a witness and has been arrested for perverting the course of justice, which I assume means he allegedly lied under oath.

Possibly so, but it's not his privilege to waive. It would be interesting to see if the conversation got into evidence.

 

[social]

I'm not a psychology major, but I imagine that if you have a sizeable ego and you tell yourself enough that you're innocent, you take it on as fact.

Possibly and there are many examples of people who believe that they can justify almost any action

Anyway, Cairns and I share a mutual acquaintance who is an extremely wealthy guy and a cricket tragic

I met him at a few of of this guy's get-togethers and there were always a few current cricketers, umpires, administrators, etc there as well

Literally no-one treated him as a pariah or had any objections to him being around whatsoever

Be interesting to see the reaction now

 

[Skyliner]

A couple of 'conspiracy theories' here:

David White shut down Brendon's answer on when he reported the approach because White has been running around saying there was "only a short delay" between the approach and Brendon reporting it, and if McCullum admits it was a three year delay then that shows White up as a liar.

A board which wants the Modi / Cairns outcome staying as it is - Modi in purgatory - leaked the testimonies to help Cairns learn in advance what he is up against & deal with his accusers one by one, in effect damaging the effectiveness of the investigation.

 

[jcas0167]

A couple of 'conspiracy theories' here:

David White shut down Brendon's answer on when he reported the approach because White has been running around saying there was "only a short delay" between the approach and Brendon reporting it, and if McCullum admits it was a three year delay then that shows White up as a liar.

A board which wants the Modi / Cairns outcome staying as it is - Modi in purgatory - leaked the testimonies to help Cairns learn in advance what he is up against & deal with his accusers one by one, in effect damaging the effectiveness of the investigation.

Given the ICC had earlier stated McCullum acted appropriately I guess they also didn't want anything that would open up that debate. It's been reported around a few places that he reported it in 2008, so it's a shame McCullum wasn't given a chance to clarify that.

I think the leaks are for the opposite purpose. To bring these things to a head and maybe embarrass the ICC into being more proactive in tackling this plague.

 

[Ferraz]

While the match and spot fixing is a concern...is the biggest issue here that it took 6 years from McCullums testimony for any action to be done....and that only because a newspaper leaked the vincent story. What confidence can a player get when they report something to see the same individuals they reported working around cricket?

Reminds me of this where the fallout was not huge

I suspect the reason why nothing seems to happen with reporting is that corruption runs deep and they do not want to expose the true scale of it

x 100000000000000

 

[Ferraz]

This is movie material.. too bad cricket is alien to Hollywood.

How about Bollywood?

 

[LongHopCassidy]

Report: Vincent offered cash and a woman to fix

For one match Vincent was, as usual, expected to score 15 or so off 20 balls and then get out. But, in attempting to get stumped, he accidentally hit the ball for six. "I thought 'what have I done','' Vincent told the ICC.

International cricketer problems, eh?

 

[fredfertang]

It's happened to me too, just the other way round

 

[Kippax]

Reason: Kiwis shape as match-fixing scapegoats | Stuff.co.nz

But why has New Zealand been targeted? There are two possible answers. The first is that New Zealand is a soft target. It has little power or money in the international game and so not many will mourn the passing of a few ex-players. New Zealand is the fall guy. If we are going to make an example of someone, make sure it's a minor minister, don't pull down the government.

The second more intriguing answer would be that New Zealand is a stalking horse, as McCullum's prediction of "a long way to go" would imply. The ACU could be using a New Zealand player's acknowledged corruption to unleash the media and to get people to tell them where the real bodies are hidden before any "dark forces" can put a stop to it.

As a side dish, don't rule out a power play from Modi. House of Cards maybe, but if Modi could bring down Cairns and Srinivasan with the same blow, then the Indian is revenged and creates a breach into which he could step.

But much of this is outside New Zealand's immediate remit. What New Zealand Cricket could do is sort out its own game. Years of rotten governance has led to the over-empowerment of players and made them easy targets for corruption. It is time to restore a proper balance of power.

The first question that needs to be asked is why, in breach of ICC regulations, did McCullum take three years to report Cairns's approach? And why, incidentally, did Dave Richardson, of the normally taciturn ICC, go out of his way to say that McCullum had acted "quite properly" in this matter, when he clearly hadn't?

Why, when McCullum was asked on Thursday to account for this three-year delay, did David White, the New Zealand Cricket chief executive, interrupt and shut down the question? McCullum said, "I'm happy to answer," but White ended the media conference.

The public is tired of this high-handed evasion. Many of us also had a good laugh when White suggested there was no evidence of any matches being fixed in New Zealand. There has been evidence swirling around this country for years.

Even this year's tour by India aroused the suspicions of most seasoned watchers. In the two test matches New Zealand scored 503, 105, 192 and 680, a perfect distribution if you are an informed spread better. Catches were dropped by India, the bowling went from searching to wide and wild. In the one-day series, one of the best teams in the world at this form of cricket, conceded big scores and then failed to chase them down.

I have my suspicions because history dictates it. An Indian bookmaker, Mukesh Gupta, said he had paid former captain Martin Crowe for information about the 1991 World Cup. Crowe was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing.

Three years later several Pakistani cricketers alleged that the third test and fifth one-day international, both played in Christchurch, were fixed. The Pakistan captain Salim Malik was banned for life and many of the team received penalties. Wasim Akram, whose father was kidnapped, was warned as to his future behaviour and deemed unfit for captaincy.

In that same period cash approaches were made to senior Australia cricketers, who were subsequently smeared. Given the pattern, it seems highly unlikely that some in the New Zealand team at the time, captained by Ken Rutherford, weren't at least approached by Malik and his cohorts.

Stephen Fleming says in his book Balance of Power, he was offered half a million by an Indian businessman to join a match-fixing syndicate in 1999. A few years later Chris Lewis, the England test cricketer, says he was offered money to fix a test in New Zealand.

It has been going on for years and with New Zealand businesses' increasing immersion in the Asian markets it is only going to get worse. McCullum, Fleming, Geoff Allott and now Sir Richard Hadlee, for goodness sake, are all involved in a company exporting goods to India and using cricket as a promotional vehicle. Surely they can see how exposed they are, the potential conflict of interests, the opportunity they offer the "dark forces".

Prime Minister John Key said the scandal would not affect next year's World Cup, to be co-hosted in this country. He added: "Most people will look at New Zealand and say we rate very highly in transparency and as a country we have very low levels of corruption."

Sorry prime minister, but many believe that our cricket pitches are no longer clean and green. New Zealand cricket is just as polluted by the dark forces of the Asian market as our clean and green water supplies. It is time White lived up to his name and cleaned up our act. Cricket's boss could start by speaking out against Mr Srinivasan.

We'll be the poorer for it, but at least the dirt will start to come off our hands.

Bringing in some parallels to the rise of agribusiness there. I like it.

 

[hendrix]

jesus that guy's a halfwit.

 

[fredfertang]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Modi had some involvement in this - I have to say I find it difficult to believe that Cairns would have taken such a high risk and expensive strategy as suing Modi for libel if he really was a fixer

 

[hendrix]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Modi had some involvement in this - I have to say I find it difficult to believe that Cairns would have taken such a high risk and expensive strategy as suing Modi for libel if he really was a fixer

you're saying McCullum is lying?

 

[fredfertang]

you're saying McCullum is lying?

Absolutely not, there's nothing more wrong than trial by tittle-tattle and no one should rush to make a judgment on this one at the moment - I'm just making the point that if McCullum is correct then Cairns has behaved very oddly indeed - but then folk sometimes do of course

 

[SteveNZ]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Modi had some involvement in this - I have to say I find it difficult to believe that Cairns would have taken such a high risk and expensive strategy as suing Modi for libel if he really was a fixer

That was based upon the unlikelihood that Modi had the evidential backing to substantiate his claims, was it not? That's the way I read it at the time. I'd heard all manner of rumours of Cairns' involvement in exactly what Modi alleged. I just believed Cairns thought there was no chance he could be pinned to it, which is exactly what happened. I'm only further vindicated by what has since unfurled.

 

[jcas0167]

That was based upon the unlikelihood that Modi had the evidential backing to substantiate his claims, was it not? That's the way I read it at the time. I'd heard all manner of rumours of Cairns' involvement in exactly what Modi alleged. I just believed Cairns thought there was no chance he could be pinned to it, which is exactly what happened. I'm only further vindicated by what has since unfurled.

Exactly. Plus Cairns had a member of the local bar who could vouch he spoke to him immediately after he was axed and that the reason was an ankle injury. That's not looking so solid anymore.

 

[fredfertang]

That was based upon the unlikelihood that Modi had the evidential backing to substantiate his claims, was it not? That's the way I read it at the time. I'd heard all manner of rumours of Cairns' involvement in exactly what Modi alleged. I just believed Cairns thought there was no chance he could be pinned to it, which is exactly what happened. I'm only further vindicated by what has since unfurled.

He must have a remarkable combination of arrogance, courage and foolishness then, as well as very deep pockets - London libel lawyers fees are often mistaken for their telephone numbers