Cricket conspiracy theories

[PeterB]

When I was active on Unexplained Mysteries, I asked there what ideas they had about sporting conspiracy theories. As I expected, there were very few.

Now a major scandal has blown up in the UK, with allegations by the News of the World that a Pakistani bookmaker has been sprung admitting to collusion with Pakistani players to fix parts of a cricket match with England last week.

There have also been persistent rumours that a couple of Pakistani players acted to help Pakistan lose a match against Australia in January, though I think some of the rumours relate more to divisions within the team than to match-fixing.

The point is, though, that there's a huge market in gambling on various aspects of cricket matches (mostly in India I think), and the sheer number of matches at various levels provide ample opportunity to hide fixes within otherwise normal games. For example, in the case of the recent Pakistan-England match, the fixes related to individual deliveries being no-balls (for baseball fans, imagine a pitcher agreeing that particular pitches in an inning will be balls).

Now it amazes me that ordinary people would bother to try to bet on something like that which is, after all, so easy and safe for the bowler (or pitcher) to fix.

But it also amuses me that such conspiracy theories are so far below the radar for conspiracy theorists, despite the amounts of money involved (I'm sure the annual betting pool on cricket, legal and illegal, amounts to billions of dollars each year). Is it that conspiracy theorists have little interest in sport? Is it that they're racist, and don't care about a bunch of Pakistani and Indian bookmakers? Or is there some other aspect I'm missing?

[PhantomWolf]

It's not "The Government" behind it.

[echnaton]

I guess you don't get to be extraordinary by uncovering ordinary corruption.

[Jason]

If you fixed a cricket match, most Americans wouldn't be able to tell. We can't figure out how you win a match in the first place.

[PeterB]

Aug 31, 2010 11:14:37 GMT -4 Jason said:

If you fixed a cricket match, most Americans wouldn't be able to tell. We can't figure out how you win a match in the first place.

That's so-o-o-o unfair. How quickly could you explain the infield fly rule to me? If you switched on the TV and it showed a baseball game, how long would it take you to tell whether the rule would apply to the next pitch? Or what's the difference between a fourth out and four strikeouts in an inning? *

And at least when we have a World Cup, it features teams from, like, you know, around the world. Unlike the World Series... ;-)

* You don't have to answer these questions. I'm learning the answers slowly...

[Jason]

I can't help you with the infield fly rule either - but that's a fairly obscure rule compared to something as basic as "how do you win?" which is something I (and I'm not alone in my ignorance) don't know about cricket.

And the players in the World Series are from around the world, even if the teams aren't.

[gillianren]

Aug 31, 2010 12:06:36 GMT -4 PeterB said:

to me? If you switched on the TV and it showed a baseball game, how long would it take you to tell whether the rule would apply to the next pitch? Or what's the difference between a fourth out and four strikeouts in an inning? *

Peter, I can't answer any of those questions, broadly because I do not care. However, Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers, has a chapter which is essentially nothing but a cricket match. It is one of my favourite books. I have read it many times, once within the last month. And I still don't have the foggiest notion of how you actually play cricket.

[tedward]

Cricket is easy. You whack a ball and score runs until there is a winner.


Its the rules that are complicated.

[Al Johnston]

Achieving victory in cricket is normally very simple - assuming all innings have been completed, the team with the highest aggregate number of runs is the winner.

Where things get complicated is in one-day matches where meteorology intervenes but a result must be determined regardless.

What is mostly true is that the question "Who is winning?" doesn't have a sensible answer until the game is over.

[Jason]

Aug 31, 2010 14:51:54 GMT -4 tedward said:

Cricket is easy. You whack a ball and score runs until there is a winner.

Funny, that's what you do in baseball too.
Or in hockey, except the ball is a puck and the runs are points - and it's all on ice.
Or in tennis, except the stick is a racket and the runs are called "loves" or something.

[tedward]

Aug 31, 2010 15:16:07 GMT -4 Jason said:

Aug 31, 2010 14:51:54 GMT -4 tedward said:

Cricket is easy. You whack a ball and score runs until there is a winner.

Funny, that's what you do in baseball too.
Or in hockey, except the ball is a puck and the runs are points - and it's all on ice.
Or in tennis, except the stick is a racket and the runs are called "loves" or something.

Baseball? That will be rounders then

Well, you have six balls delivered in an over. Over is the part of the game where six balls are lobbed by someone doing an unfeasable run that finishes in a flurry of arms and legs and a ball flys out. Then you will have 20 over game or 40 over ect. The team you field does all the batting and bowling so no mucking around like the US football. Hence the teams usually put the good batters in first and the bowlers make up the tail end.

When fielding, that is when they are not in (you are in when you are batting) the bowlers do all the bowling and the batters just try to catch it. Then the one who is in is out........ oh this is going to get complicated. See? its the rules. You start to get into spinners and seamers and the pitch changing in the game. And in the UK it rains so that adds and then the mother of all boredoms, test cricket. People actually get excited over it.


Watching grass grow in my opinion.

Edit. might help

[StoneRoad]

Although I do know a tiny, very little bit about the rules of cricket: what perplexes me is how the actions of one or two players are supposed to "fix" the result. Last time I looked, first class / international matches had two teams of eleven players, all playing to win???
(this also applies to allegations of football match fixing....)

[tedward]

It was spot betting so they were probably betting on the number of no balls or the timing of no balls, x over, 3rd ball for example. Spot betting does not need a win, it is on an event in the match and whether it happens etc.

Edit. Obviously allegedly.

[echnaton]

The Chicago Black Socks Scandal was a conspiracy of eight players. That would be enough to throw one pivotal game in the world series. Probably too many players actually. In a tight game, some well timed fielding errors and poor batting by a three or four key players could throw a game.

You would probably need the short stop, left or center fielder and catcher. All players who could bobble a ball or make an errant throw to change the game outcome. Add the best batter not in the group and you can lose a game without calling attention to any one player. Pitchers are problematic because they will get pulled for poor performance and don't bat well.

[PeterB]

Aug 31, 2010 11:14:37 GMT -4 Jason said:

If you fixed a cricket match, most Americans wouldn't be able to tell. We can't figure out how you win a match in the first place.

The Wikipedia page on Cricket (the sport) is a good place to start.

The way I think of it is to start with baseball and explain the various differences until you end up with cricket (or something approximating it).

Field - becomes an oval, with the action in the centre on a pitch which is 22 yards long.

Pitcher - becomes a bowler. Has to bowl the ball (keep the arm straight) rather than throw it, so a run up is needed to generate pace. The fastest bowlers can achieve speeds just under 100 miles per hour.

Batter - becomes a batsman. Can keep batting until he gets out, so no "three strikes and you're out". There are always two batsmen out on the field, with the second batsmen standing beside where the bowler bowls.

Strike zone - sort of becomes the wicket (three vertical stumps and two bails sitting on top). This is a target for the bowler to bowl at, and for the batsman to defend. There are wickets at both ends of the pitch.

Runs - still runs. A run is scored when the batsmen successfully run to each others' positions, rather than having to make it all the way around the diamond. So in cricket you make much higher scores. 300 runs for an innings is about an average score these days.

Double, triple, infield home run - becomes two runs or three runs (or sometimes more). The batsmen can keep running as long they're willing to risk getting out.

Ground rule double - becomes a boundary: if the batsman hits the ball to the boundary, it scores four runs.

Home run - becomes six runs. If the batsman hits the ball over the boundary on the full, it scores six runs.

Pitch - becomes a delivery. Six deliveries make an over. Overs are bowled from alternating ends of the pitch.

Flyout - becomes a catch. If a member of the fielding side catches the ball on the full after it was hit by the batsman, the batsman is out caught.

Strikeout - no exact equivalent. However, if the bowler bowls the ball onto the wicket, the batsman is out bowled. Also, if the bowler bowls the ball onto the body of the batsman and the umpire thinks the ball would have gone on to hit the wicket if it hadn't hit the batsman, the batsman is out Leg Before Wicket (the idea being that the batsman shouldn't be using his body to protect the wicket).

Ground out, force out, tag out - becomes a run out. If someone on the fielding side throws the ball so it hits the wickets when the batsmen are running, and the batsman hasn't reached that end of the pitch, the batsman is out run out. A run out can occur at either end of the pitch.

Double play - no equivalent. Only one batsman can ever be out from a single delivery.

Substitutions - becomes the twelfth man. Substitute pitchers have no equivalent in cricket. All the bowling is limited to the eleven men of the fielding side. (Though I understand that in baseball, technically, pitching can be shared among all the players on the field.) If a fielding player needs to go off the field for some reason, a substitute player can go on the field in his place, but the sub can't bowl.

Half inning - becomes an innings. All eleven players in the team get to bat in an innings. When a batsman is out, he's replaced by the next player on the list. Once ten of the eleven men are out, the innings ends, because the last remaining batsman doesn't have a partner.

Match: consists of two innings for each team. The team with the higher aggregate of runs over the two innings is the winner. If the team batting second passes the aggregate of the team batting first, the game ends immediately with the innings unfinished. Sometimes one team bats so badly that it scores fewer runs in its two innings than the other side does in one innings. This is effectively the same as the team in baseball batting second not having to bat in its ninth inning.

That's nowhere near all the rules (oops, they're laws in cricket!), but it's a start.

Incidentally, it might warm the patriotic cockles of American and Canadian hearts that the first international cricket match took place in 1844 between the USA and Canada. Since 1877, however, when an English side played an Australian side, international matches have been called Test Matches - except, for no reason I understand, the annual matches between the USA and Canada.