Fixing Scandal!!!!!

[Adders]

Well that was all a bit odd

[91Jmay]

Lou Vincent's confessions of a cricket fixer REVEALED... Crooked Kiwi says Asian bookies fixed English county matches | Mail Online

Not sure if this has already been posted. As someone who sufffers from a few mental health problems, the way Vincent seems to be painting that as partially to be to blame is disgusting. It doesn't effect your morals.

[hendrix]

yeah not a fan. Anyway the 2012 matches were supposedly well beyond when he'd recovered and largely dealt with his mental health problems.

[Kippax]

Cricket fixing scandal: The day I confronted Lou Vincent - Telegraph

By Iain O'Brien, Former New Zealand player10:30PM BST 16 May 2014

“Did you?” “Huh?” “Did you, you know, do some dumb things while you were playing?” I was sitting across from Lou Vincent, the ex-New Zealand cricketer and ex-team-mate of mine. We were in a curry house, not far from the HAC Ground in London, where we had both just played in a charity Twenty20. It was Aug 30, 2012 and I hadn’t seen Lou for a long time; in a lot of ways, intentionally. I didn’t really want to be seen with him, associated with him or considered a mate of his.
We did, and do have, one thing in common; we both suffer with mental illness. That was the basis for a lot of what we talked about that day.
Lou had been touring in a camper van spreading his story of MI and raising awareness. What he was doing seemed great, but what he had been doing wasn’t.
I knew he had been up to no good. It becomes evident, as a player, that what you see is not always real. That moment you learn that wrestling on TV isn’t real. It is acting. It is hard to believe at first and then, when you have watched a lot, or been around it endlessly, you see it for what it really is. There is no going back.

On a Test tour of Bangladesh, 2008, we, the New Zealand team watched a lot of the Indian Cricket League; the ‘rebel’ T20 competition in its first year. We watched some of the most unbelievable cricket. Unbelievable in a way that we could not believe how obvious what was going on: leaving and or padding up to straight ones, run outs by massive distances in curious circumstances, batsmen playing out maidens, no-balls and wides just too big and too often to be natural mistakes. It looked a shambles.

And this included Lou Vincent. He had walked away from a New Zealand contract to take part in a lucrative league. We knew what was going on.
Without a shadow of doubt Lou was fixing. From our Bangladesh telephone sims (when touring, typically, we buy or are provided with a local sim), players who had Lou’s number would text him with some rather unpleasant messages about what he was doing. He was called a “fixer”, a “cheat” and many more unprintable things.

Lou denied any involvement. I asked him again if he had “fixed”, if he had been a part of it. He straight out rejected my line of questions. I showed him a scorecard from a game I had watched live. I had the scorecard saved as a bookmark on my phone browser so that we could talk specifics. I showed it to him. He put his one run from nine balls, playing out a first-over maiden, to just good bowling. I called that “rubbish”.
Lou is a quality player. For a fix he promised to score, 30 inside three overs. He failed, but a player with that quality does not score one from nine balls. I have not spoken to Lou since.
It happens here, in the UK. More than in just the matches we have read about from Lou’s accounts.

I was commentating on a match at Chelmsford and Danish Kaneria, the Essex and Pakistan leggie, bowled one of the biggest wides I have ever seen. It was the first ball of a spell. In the box we were flabbergasted at how flagrant it was.
In the previous two World Twenty20s I watched a highly respected player swap his bat, make sure that the cameras caught it by taking a long time to complete the act, on three occasions. A wicket fell in the next over, either him or his partner. A coincidence? I don’t think so. A change of bat can be a sign to a bookie that the fix is on.

I have seen others too. The ones outlined by Vincent. I watched the Sussex v Kent game which we now know contained spot-fixing and I sensed something was up.

The issue is, knowing and proving. Should I, as an ex-player and now commentator, be reporting suspect activity to the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit? Maybe I should.

But, I feel it is so rife that they would get overrun by what I see as suspect actions which have become so blatant that it is hard to believe they even care about our game anymore.

[Kippax]

As someone who sufffers from a few mental health problems, the way Vincent seems to be painting that as partially to be to blame is disgusting. It doesn't effect your morals.

Not sure about that in Lou's case tbh. Very existential depths.

Mental health issues: Toughest battle off the pitch - National - NZ Herald News

"It's just the emptiness. There's a really big feeling of emptiness. You look at life and you go, 'This means nothing, absolutely nothing. Here's my child. Yeah, it's a good child. I'm supposed to love it but I don't want to love it because I don't want it to miss me when I'm gone.'

[Spikey]

it probably affects decision making

[Spikey]

speaking of decision making, mal loye should have decided to tell the authorities but maybe it's not as simple as that

Cricket star Mal Loye reveals the day he was offered £20,000 by Lou Vincent to cheat | Mail Online

[BoyBrumby]

Stephen Brenkley's take on it.

Suggests Srinivasan, who is "under profound scrutiny" in India & his own Super Kings "under investigation for possible misdemeanours" might not be the best choice for the next ICC chairman.

He also says,

Lou Vincent, about whom, along with two or three others rumours, circulated for years

One can't help but wonder as to who the others dogged by these suggestions might be...

[DingDong]

these problems would not be there if boards like pakistan and australia actually punished the guilty parties instead of trying to shield them in the early 90s.

[fredfertang]

Paying the players properly in the first place would have helped

[Dan]

Mr. Packer has a lot to answer for

[Fuller Pilch]

It gets worse - might have to find another sport to follow

[SteveNZ]

Lou Vincent's confessions of a cricket fixer REVEALED... Crooked Kiwi says Asian bookies fixed English county matches | Mail Online

Not sure if this has already been posted. As someone who sufffers from a few mental health problems, the way Vincent seems to be painting that as partially to be to blame is disgusting. It doesn't effect your morals.

I know that's your own impression but I would almost certainly promise you it does affect your decision making. A scrambled, murky, desperate brain will make decisions you wouldn't dream of in a calm, measured moment. Then I would say once you're in, it's a dug hole with no elevator back to the surface.

Lou is someone who has always been very eager to be everyone's best friend and please everyone all of the time. Mr XXX and others obviously knew that.

[James]

Interesting interview with Andre Adams for those interested - Andre Adams: Lou Vincent revelations - News Clips - Audio on Demand - Newstalk ZB

[Kippax]

,

British media are expected to reveal the identity of the man who's become known as 'Cricketer X', in the next few hours.