When I first read about the details of the match-fixing scandal that has now engulfed cricket, I have to say that I wondered what all the fuss was about. I thought it a pretty minor things, blown out of proportion by news outlets anxious to fill column inches and rolling news minutes at the fag-end of silly season.
Through my own actions, though, I have realised that I was wrong about all this. Five minutes ago, I started to do something that I have planned to do for about three months now: buy a ticket to the One Day International between Pakistan and England at Lord’s. But I didn’t. Despite planning for that long, and despite already knowing that the tickets are an extorsionate £80, I decided that I wouldn’t pay a tenner to watch a match in which certain things, perhaps even the end result, were already decided.
This, as the pundits have been saying, is how the scandal will affect cricket. People who are unsure of whether what they are watching is ‘real’ will not pay.
Events and the result being pre-ordained may be accepted and paid for by WWE fans, but it’s just not cricket.
My favourite thing in London
18 hours ago
2 comments:
With this year's Snooker World Championships, I kind of had the same feeling over it. The scandal with John Higgins was only brought to light towards the near-end of the championships, so it didn't really have much of an effect then, but I think I will go through the same thoughts you just have next year. I am questioning whether to get tickets to the Crucible next year (more so for my other half), and there's the train tickets to get up to Sheffield as well.
I'm not really into cricket, but London is quite lucky in the respect that whilst the tickets are so pricy, it's still so accessible with Lord's and the Oval, but you are right – with a sport that is as refined as cricket is, the uncertainty of knowing whether or not a match is fixed leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
Exactly, it's a lot of money to fork out when you are worried about what you are seeing. Snooker and cricket will recover of course, but in the mean time the effect on both sports is rubbish.
Being a cricket fan in London is great! The vast majority of matches are ridiculously cheap too, and even when you pay 80 quid for a ticket to an international, you are getting about 9 hours entertainment to be fair.
Actually, being a sport fan in general is fantastic in this city. DiamondGeezer recently highlighted how many decent football teams there are, though I'm not a football fan, and it's easy to watch loads of rugby here too, which I do like!
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