The Pakistani Betting Scandal
Now I’ve held a bookmaking licence in my time and I’ve also had some good successes making the odd ridiculous bet. I had £10 each-way on Terimon for the Derby many years ago at 500-1 and it came second, so I made a profit of over a £1,000 on the transaction.
Usually though I’ve had inside information, as the horse has either been one of mine or it has been trained in the same stable. There was also my last winner, Joy of Freedom, who won at Folkestone at long odds, because she was pregnant and that had improved her no end!
But in all these cases the bookies offered the odds and we took them.
The one case we didn’t take the odds, was when my horse, Debach Delight, won at Ayr. She started at odds of 22-1 on, which meant that to win a pound, you needed to stake tenty-two. Not good betting odds, but I had noticed that to generate business the bookies were offering 10-1, if she won the race by ten lengths. When she duly won by twelve, I told the jockey about the betting, who said that I should have had a bet and told him, as he would have made sure I won. He wasn’t suggesting anything dishonest, but he had eased the horse down in the last furlong and if it had mattered, he would have made sure, she had won by the requisite distance, as she in fact had.
This just shows that if bookmakers offer silly bets, like whether the next delivery will be a no-ball, it is very easy to take advantage.
In part this is what has happened with the scandal involving the Pakistani cricketers. The bookies offer a silly bet, so someone takes advantage and asks the bowler to bowl a no-ball.
The first thing that needs to be done is rid the sport of these illegal bookmakers or at least the bets that encourage cheating. Only then will we be able to clean up the game.
I have to say that the response of Pakistani supporters in the UK, seems to have been exemplary, with most appearing to be extremely disappointed about the actions of the Pakistani players.
Don’t They Ever Learn?
Pakistani cricketers are once again in the brown stuff. This time, it’s about spot betting on whether a delivery is a no-ball or not. But the Pakistani cricket team has been involved in all sorts of scandals over the past few years. So you’d think that with all the problems in the country, that the cricketers would be playing to try to give some sort of lift to their unfortunate compatriots.
If the allegations are proven to be true, then those involved should be banned for life from ever playing cricket again!
The real curse is this spot betting. Imagine yesterday at Portman Road and you could bet on Grant Leadbitter hitting the bar from a free kick. (Actually, what he did deserved a goal!) But bookmakers in some places will take such a bet. Certainly no reputable or licensed one would.
As an aside to this Oxfam have just said that billions of pounds will have to be spent to reconstruct Pakistan and it must start now! Can we trust the country to spend the money wisely and not let it end up in the hands of crooks?
Even if we can, these cricketers have sowed the seeds of doubt in many peoples’ minds.
Pakistani Sensitivities
Since David Cameron made his comments about Pakistan in India last week, there has been a lot of criticism for the Prime Minister, from both the Pakistani government and people of Pakistani origin in the UK.
Having read extensively on the country, I feel very much that David Cameron was right.
This was then published in The Times in a letter from Shaun Gregory at the University of Bradford.
David Cameron has now seen the UK and US intelligence available on Pakistani army and ISI links to the different Afghan Taleban groups and to Punjabi terrorist organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. He has also been able to reflect on eight years of Labour’s softly-softly approach to Pakistan since 9/11, which has led precisely nowhere in terms of the resurgence of the Afghan Taleban from bases in Pakistan. The Prime Minister is right therefore to seek to increase the pressure on Pakistan in this critical year for Isaf and to reassure India that Britain stands beside the world’s largest democracy in the face of terrorism exported from Pakistan.
Surely though with the flood problems in his country at the moment, the place for the President of Pakistan is at home supporting the unfortunate citizens of his country. Obviously, he is following Dubya’s thinking, when he refused to go to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
It was reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend, that Pakistan has received billions of dollars of US aid. Perhaps some of it should have been used for disaster planning? According to Newsweek, it has not been spent well. Here’s a paragraph from the hardhitting article.
But how effective will this round of money be? Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad have alleged that Pakistan misspent some 70 percent of the U.S. funds that paid the Pakistani military to run missions in the unwieldy provinces along the Afghan border. U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of running a double game with the money, keeping the Taliban at bay just enough to persuade American benefactors to keep their wallets open, thereby ensuring a lifeline for the country’s mangled economy. All of which raises the question: will any amount of money produce results?
I doubt it! So we must kep the pressure on the corrupt and dangerous regime that is Pakistan, but continue to support the people with humanitarian aid and the rebuilding of the flood-damaged areas. But all funds should be funnelled through agencies and people we can trust, both to do the job and not to divert it for other purposes.
The Paradox that is Pakistan
There is a long article in The Sunday Times today by Christina Lamb, that should be read by everyone who worries for the future of that part of Asia. I do,as I was born, when two nations; India and Pakistan, were created out of violence.
She details how the ISI, the Pakistan Security Service has pursued its own policies over the country, the Taliban and Afghanistan. She more or less accuses the ISI of being involved in the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the attacks on Mumbai. One also wonders where the $18billion that the United States has given Pakistan in aid has gone?
After reading Lanb’s article, I feel very much that David Cameron got it about right, when he spoke in India last week!
We also today have the appalling performance of the Pakistan cricket team at Nottingham, where they collapsed badly and were beaten by 354 runs. They had the nucleus of a team, but it self-destructed in Australia and some players endeed up being banned for life. If you can’t organise your national sport, when you have so much history in the game, you are in a bad state.
Added to this is the fact, that I know from some of my friends, that it is still possible to do serious business with Pakistan. So it’s not all bad news!
But what worries me about Pakistan is that if they should support another terrorist attack on India. Would India show the same restraint she did after the Mumbai attacks? I think not this time, as those attacks weren’t the first and they must be losing patience!
Would the various communities from the sub-continent show restraint in the UK? Most probably would, but I doubt that we could keep out of it.
Pakistan must get its act together, reinforce democracy and curb the power of the ISI.
Do We Somehow Absorb The Events Happening As We Are Born?
I don’t mean in an astrological way, as that is a load of old rubbish. But surely the state, feelings and emotions of the mother, must be passed to the child!
When our first son was born in 1969, everybody was on edge for the first moon landing. But it all turned out well! Gayle Hunnicutt whose own son was born at the same time, said her son was placid. Was ours? Perhaps as a young child, but not like how Gayle described her son.
I was born on the 16th August 1947, just a day after India gained independence. I am a few hours late to be one of Midnight’s Children. Has it affected me? I love India and most things Indian. I’ve been twice and hopefully I’ll go again. I’ve just watched John Sergeant’s excellent documentary on Indian railways, which talked eloquently about the tragedy and violence of partition, when around a 1,000,000 people died. It must have been in the papers and on the radio around the time I was born. I’ve also heard of this violence from a man, who at the time was a young officer in the British Army trying to move civilians to safety in soft-skinned vehicles. He wouldn’t talk about it.
In Sergeant’s documentary, we saw how the tragedy still continues, with India and Pakistan refusing to forget the violence and emnity and try to build a better future.
Today London showed how bad that relationship has become, with Pakistan playing Australia at the neutral venue of Lords. Judging by the fact that Pakistan are on top, they will claim victory, when in truth they have been defeated by the terrorists, who have forced them to play in England.
We must learn to renounce violence and surely the Indian sub-continent has seen enough in the last seventy years.
The Anonymous Widower 