The Great Cricket Scandals You’ve Been Ignoring For Way Too Long

The Cricket World Cup is currently in full swing in Bangladesh, and even after from watching highlights with a Sri Lankan co-worker a few minutes (what up, Tate!), I don’t have much to say on the matter. But judging by the fan that biked 500 miles to be at the Cup, passions for cricket are just as insane over there as any sport we have over here.

And you know what goes nicely with “passion”?

Corruption!

Like, remember when the Pakistani national team (above) was caught fixing matches last year? Well that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In honor of the World Cup, Business Insider highlights some of the most memorable cricket controversies from over the years, and a few highlights from their list are after the jump.

First, there’s your garden variety match-fixing scandal, with bonus points awarded because the player in question used his money to start bribing teammates to help. When you think about it, doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of taking a bribe in the first place? Smarten up, South Africa:

South African cricketer and former captain Hansie Cronje’s 2000 match-fixing scandal remains the most infamous to date. ... Cronje at first denied the allegations but then admitted to accepting $15,000 from a bookie in London. It eventually emerged that he had offered two of his teammates money to under-perform [and] that former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin had introduced him to the bookie.

Then there’s this little controversy between New Zealand and Australia, included here because I’ve read this paragraph five times, and still don’t really understand what the exact offense was. A good example of why, however salacious, Americans will never understand cricket:

...the Kiwis needed 6 runs from the final ball of the match to tie with the Aussies. Australian captain Greg Chappel told the bowler, who also happened to be his brother, to deliver an underarm (which made it impossible to score a six.) In a rather unsportsmanlike fashion Trevor Chappel strolled up to the pitch and rolled the ball across, Brian McKechnie played the ball anyway and then threw his bat and walked off the field in disgust.

And there was this trash talk, which, well... SHOTS. FIRED.

During Australia’s match against the West Indies Australian bowler Glenn McGrath and West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan had quite the altercation.

GM: “So what does Brian Lara’s [the West Indian captain] di*k taste like?

Sarwan: “I don’t know ask your wife”.

McGrath: “If you ever f**king mention my wife again, I’ll f**king rip your f**ing throat out.”

It turns out Glenn McGrath’s wife was terminally ill with cancer at the time.

Oof. A lot of cheapshots going back and forth there. But in fairness to Sarwan, A) Are we sure he knew about McGrath’s wife’s cancer? and B) McGrath totally started it, didn’t he?

In any case, there’s plenty more scandals at Business Insider, including lots of bribery and point shaving, plus a manager who was strangled to death in his hotel room after losing a match.

Even soccer’s like, “Come on guys, that’s a little crazy.”

And yes, somebody definitely needs to compile a Top 10 Scandals list for American sports. My first choice in America would be boxing, but if we could ever get David Stern to open up about some of the thing’s he’s covered up over the years, the NBA could probably top it.