What does the spot-fixing scandal mean for us?

As the cricketing world begins to digest the many implications of the trial’s outcome, today we’re asking you – what does all of this mean for us, as English cricket followers?

I suspect that a great many people in our constituency are not quite as animated by recent events as cricket journalists and quoted ex-players have been. Judging by Facebook, or water-cooler conversations, the reaction has been muted – c0mpared, say, to an Ashes test or the sacking of an England captain.

Partly that’s because spot-fixing seems, from our perspective, rather unreal and intangible. It requires an effort of imagination, and the piecing together of disparate actions, to appreciate the magnitude of the wrongdoing and its consequences.

I suspect the other main reason is cynicism. Put bluntly, the revelation that several Pakistani players took money to fix passages of play did not strike the English cricketing public as a terrible shock. The general mood, rightly or wrongly, is that these guys have been up to no good for years. Butt, Asif and Amir were just the ones who got caught.

We’ve become inured to the byzantine skulduggery of Pakistani cricket – to the alleged corruption,  crazy politics, personality clashes, suspensions and sackings, claims of ball-tampering and drug taking, not to mention the ball-biting, pitch-scuffing antics of Shahid Afridi. Scandals seem to emerge from that nation almost daily; they pass us by virtually unnoticed.

We’ve also grown bored and weary of the fixing issue itself, which has come and gone in waves of allegations and investigations for longer that we can remember. The debate is so well-rehearsed that it barely impinges on our consciousness. We know that fixing kills sport, but because we have no vivid experience of this actually happening – of a match clearly rendered meaningless by corruption – our eyes tend to glaze over whenever the subject arises.

But there are several facts about the current scandal which are worth us bearing in mind. Firstly, it took place here, in England, not some back street in Lahore or Karachi. And it centred upon a test series in which England were playing.

Is our 3-1 victory in that rubber devalued or even voided by the actions which took place? What about the achievements of Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad, who both made big centuries at Lord’s? The no-balls obviously made no difference to the result, but they are only the fixed events we know about. What else might have happened – and not just in that match but across the series as a whole?

It appears likely that the two Pakistan-Australian tests, which were played in this country, earlier that summer, were also affected in some way. Given that the ECB had extended a huge gesture of support to Pakistani cricket by staging the series (they cannot play at home due to the terrorist threat), for the side’s captain to then fix the matches, and suck England into the ensuing crisis, is a strange way of repaying the favour.

We have always believed that fixing is a south Asian problem, but it’s worth remembering that Mazhar Majeed, the chief culprit in this case, is English. How many other people in this country – perhaps but not necessarily with links to Pakistan or India – have also been involved? Might they have targeted county cricket, whose lower profile makes it more vulnerable to malign intervention?

We can’t answer any of those questions, at least yet, but there is plenty of food for thought. As for the main question – how seriously this affects us as England supporters and followers – my honest personal answer is…I don’t know. Perhaps you can help us out. We’d love to hear all your thoughts, views, and reaction.

Maxie Allen