Sticky wickets

Foul Play has never drunk Pimm’s in his entire life. It’s a shocking thing to say, in the light of all that has already been said, but there you have it.

Furthermore, Foul Play had never been possessed of an urge to consume any amount of Pimm’s before last Wednesday week, when he took possession of a document that cried out for a glass of that venerable beverage with which to toast its contents.

On the remote off-chance that there are any of you who do not devour the cricketing sections of the UK broadsheets’ sports pages with alacrity each week, I should explain that last Wednesday week saw the publication of the International Cricket Council’s report into the prevalence of corruption in their sport.

Compiled and collated by Sir Paul Condon, the high-ranking cop who oversaw the McPherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, its 77 pages fairly reek of sleaze and innuendo, with all sorts of references to bent bookmakers, underhand umpires, surreptitious spread betting and other forms of corruption.

I treated myself to a perusal of its contents the other week, languidly leafing through it as I sat out in the back garden. The sun was splitting the rocks, my little Jack Russell lay slumbering at my feet, insects flitted busily about in the hot afternoon air, and the loudest sound to be heard was the mellifluous tweeting of birdsong.

And as the sun beat relentlessly down on this serene little tableau of tranquillity and contentedness, all I could think was: “The only thing missing from this scene is a glass of Pimm’s that I can sip at my leisure while idly pondering the vicissitudes of modern cricket.”

It was what we connoisseurs of the finely-tweaked metaphor usually refer to as “a Dickie Bird moment”.

Unfortunately, the alcohol contents of the fridge at the time consisted of six cans of Royal Dutch and a bottle of Wild Turkey, both of which would have only complicated matters. But I digress.

Lifting the lid on a culture of chicanery, sharp practice and dubious agendas, Condon’s report is far more readable than this sort of thing

usually has any right to be. Although he avers that most of the cheating within the sport – match-fixing,

illegal betting, backhanders etc –

has now been stamped, he warns that there is still a small hardcore of devious little bastards at it, taking bungs and rigging matches at the behest of (usually Indian) bookies, to beat the band.

People will understandably be shocked by the contents of the report because, for as long as cricket has been played, the game has attracted only the best and brightest.

For instance, a friend of mine likes to recount the yarn about the time he stumbled upon a cricket match in a village somewhere in County Wicklow, and glimpsed none other than Kevin Myers, the well-known Irish Times diarist and raconteur, lounging by the pavilion with a plate of cucumber sandwiches in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other. Presumably they had run out of Pimm’s by that stage.

Myers, according to my eyewitness, was sporting a garishly colourful blazer and gleaming white shoes, with a straw boater perched neatly atop his curly head of hair. I suppose when the alternative is having to knock out another column about travellers, or the rich tapestry of Northern unionism, you’ll give anything a lash.

But back to the anti-corruption report. Condon makes it clear in his findings that the main reason for sleaze taking such a hold on the game was the largely pathetic levels of remuneration dished out to all but the top 50 or so players.

I don’t suppose anybody has thought of making the umpires professional and giving the players a decent wage? You know, it’s so crazy it might just work.

It might at least help to put an end to the shenanigans of men like Hansie Cronje. It emerged last year that the former South African captain had been trousering obscene sums of cash from a New Delhi-based bookmaker in return for furnishing him with the inside dope on matters like the team’s batting strategy for that day, which bowlers they would be using and in what order, and, for all I know, which end of the ground the umpire would stand at first.

It does seem, however, that all 24 of Condon’s recommendations (e.g. running an awareness programme telling cricketers not to take money off Indian turf accountants, not using your mobile phone for spread betting, keeping your wits about you in places like Pakistan – that sort of thing) will be implemented in time for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.

Sadly, there seems to be little that he and his nine-strong team of helpers can do to make the game more watchable to any meaningful degree. Which is bad news for those of us who have just paid our bi-monthly Sky Sports bill to find that the two most enticing events of the summer, the Tri Nations and the Copa America, don’t start for at least another month. So, it’s down to the off-licence for a couple of bottles of Pimm’s, then…