Clean bowled!

In a country suffering huge demise because of flooding, long divided by the clashes between diverse ethnicity, religion and sect, plagued by terrorism, cricket should be a boon. However it seems that greed has taken its toll.
Pakistan Cricket has been a top notch, led by likes of ‘Toe Crusher’ Waqar Younis , Wasim Akram, patriotic and talented Miandad, And ‘ Cleanest of all’ Imran khan. But recent allegations on players tell a different story altogether. Three Pakistani cricketers, including the captain, Salman Butt, are alleged to have conspired with gamblers to fix recent games against England’s team, a practice known as ‘spot-fixing’.
Roots of these may lie deeper than that can be seen. Mostly in Indian subcontinent, cricketing boards are governed by politicians, who are rather strangers to the game but not to the administration and crawl their way in, where they are not needed. Could this be one of the reasons, that dirty politics at top is the real culprit, and the players could just be a manifestation of it? Not only this event but the recent IPL-Lalit Modi scam does give an indication.
Corruption; money laundering and damage to cricketing community as a whole , is perhaps the worst that can happen to a country like Pakistan, which is already in so much troubles. And the biggest danger it poses is to image of Pakistan which is already tainted due to all the prevalent, wrong activities and operations.
The cricketing body of Pakistan, led by Asif Ali himself, needs to rethink beyond filling pockets of some lucky few. In the recent years, from match fixing to misbehavior, and from ball tampering to fights within dressing room, Pakistani cricket has been in news for all the wrong reasons. It is responsibility of ruling class to think more than money and handle the situation carefully. Guilty should be punished severely to set an example, however steps for improvement do not end there, instead it is just a starting point. Pakistan already has many problems to handle and politicians should stop adding to the misery. If steps are not taken at right level, at right time and by right people, Pakistan’s long term image is at stake.