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So, What Do I Know?

I have to admit that I love cricket: test cricket in particular. I can understand why people don’t like the idea of a game that can last five days and still end in a draw, but for me the complexities, twists and turns of a five day test match are delightful. Life isn’t simple and doesn’t always produce simple endings and I enjoy a sport that mirrors this.

That being said, I have to admit that I was absolutely shocked on Saturday evening when the BBC news led with a story about corruption in the current England – Pakistan test series. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t shocked that cricket could be corrupt; I’m not that naive! Given the enormous sums that are generated by gambling on cricket, it is hardly surprising at all that some young Pakistani men have yielded to the temptation of some very fast money. It wasn’t as if they were throwing the match away. No, my problem was that the cricket scandal came top of the news, while the floods in Pakistan only came as the third item (number two was the miners awaiting rescue in Chile).

It seemed dreadful to me that a sporting scandal could be seen as more important than the lives of millions of people in Pakistan. I was all fired up to write an indignant blog post about how the Western media are so biased in their approach to world issues, when I learned that the cricket corruption story was also headline news in Pakistan at the moment!

I still find the relative priorities to be somewhat surprising; but I can’t lay the blame at the Western media if the same thing is happening in Pakistan, too.

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