A spot of bother

The Indian Premier League may be the world's first ever quantum sporting event, being that it exists in a state of being completely fixed and utterly broken at the same time. Overnight's breaking news of multiple player arrests as part of a spot-fixing scandal involving shady underworld figures and dodgy bookmakers (not for once implicating Tom Wankerface) were met by large rounds of 'What else is new?' amongst cricket fans, weathered against the moral and sporting vacuum under lights that constitues the IPL. Although these blokes weren't best pleased.

Fucking hell Sanjeev, I said YOU were supposed to bring the effigy this protest 

If you were seeking to evolve a sporting tournament from scratch that would be maximally susceptible to corruption, you couldn't have done any better than the IPL's proven template. Select for lazy, avaricious local and international pros more interested in money than the game. Surround them with glitz, glamour and shiny shit; culture for weeks in a petri-dish of hangers-on, media gushers, celebritards, thieves, pimps and bookies. Make them pay endless sequences of who-cares fixtures between who-cares franchises. Then look shocked and horrified when they start bowling pies on queue with towels down the front of their trou.

In related news, our Irony Meter just blew up

Although the IPL is by definition a tournament of irrelevance and idiocy, Sreesanth et al's actions are a lot closer to 'match' fixing than 'spot' fixing than say the Pakistanis who were done a few years ago. Hurling down a few no-balls in a five-day-test vs England is liable to have considerably lower less impact on the result than going for 14 an over at the pointy end of a T20 game, no matter how monstrously pointless an exercise said contest is, or destructive to the game of cricket at large. Or even to individual reputations. Former Strayan quick Shaun Tait found his name dragged through the mud with no apparent justification after unsubstantiated reports of wads of cash being found in his hotel room circulated online, and then in news reports. Not only was this completely unfair on Tait, it would be completely inexplicable. In general, in order to be involved in spot-fixing, one must first have some form of rudimentary control over the general vicinity into which one is to deliver the ball.

Meanwhile, in England, actual cricket has broken out. Thank fuck for that.

The Doctor is OUT.