And so it's clear - the defence of the Pakistan Three will rest on the testing of the News Of The World evidence. It's the logical way to go for them, because, as blogged here, the burden of proof for a newspaper story is different to that required to take away someone's ability to earn a living, and its remedies are civil rather than criminal.
As Rob Bagchi writes today, the NOTW has a patchy record in terms of its stings. They look good in the paper but then don't always stand up. There is often an element of entrapment about them that can be exploited by those entrapped.
Sunday will be a big day. The NOTW almost always hold something back for a second week. As usual they will have one aim: to sell newspapers. Everything else, from the fate of Mohammed Amir to the impact on cricket, is simply collateral damage in their endless war.
The success of the ICC and ACSU in identifying any spot fixing will depend entirely on their ability to wrench the story away from the newspapers and produce their own evidence, something far harder to do.
Three memories of cricket in 2024
1 day ago
Posts
2 comments:
I have no doubt that they have more allegations for Sunday.
If they are doing this for the greater and good of cricket then why haven't they given all their evidence to ICC and the police?
They will all be waiting to see what happens on Sunday.
And could the next lot of revelations impact what the police have already investigated?
I also believe it is entrapment, and in a criminal court I don't think that goes down well.
Although I'm not sure what the level of proof has to be to staisfy ICC? Does it have to be to a criminal level, or civil level, or just enough to convince them?
As it stands, if the evidence isn't good enough to get a criminal conviction, could ICC be challenged legally if they find the three guilty?
Although I heard Jonathan Agnew on the radio yesterday and he said that he is led to believe that the police investigation is based around money laundering.
Which, if true, would mean ICC and police are going down slightly different routes.
This could go on for a long time, and I think the only real winners will be NOTW, but they were doing it for the good of cricket, of course.
Somebody was busy speculating on one of the other blogs as to whether Indian knowledge - or at least, fears - of Pakistan's players being compromised lead to none of the Pakistani players being picked in the IPL draft. It sounds plausible.
Post a Comment