Kallis has had extended periods of injury too, its why he doesn't bowl much. If Kallis had been in the shape he is now and peak physical fitness for most of his career I dont think its too much of a stretch to say that we would be looking at a guy averaging 60 with the bat and 26/27 with the ball which would truly be not far off GOAT.

Some of the reasoning in this thread is ******ed tbh, and no offense intended but to say 'I saw flintoff smack 70 which set up a win and I saw Kallis bat for his average before a declaration' is just lol variance. This is why they use statistics in sport, sure it doesn't tell the full story, but it gives a better picture than just romantically picking the best and worst moments of peoples careers and using them to prove a point.

Back to the important Kallis hair point, does anyone know why they do it? Surely they must realise they are going to get so much stick for at least a year and when they make it that obvious, who can blame people for pointing it out. Not sure its quite as strange looking as rooneys was when he first had it but still quite obvious.

Yeah, can't agree that Flintoff won the 2005 Ashes single handedly - he got a bit of help from Strauss, Trescothick, Vaughan, Pietersen, G Jones, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison and S Jones during the series but his consistent performances were certainly the rock on which England's success was built. Had it not been for him it would have been another 3-0 or 4-0 drubbing.

The 2009 Ashes victory was very much more of a squad effort.

Well at Trent Bridge England were 213-4 when he came in and 241-5 when Geriant Jones joined him, batting on a good pitch. As throughout the series it was as much the way that he (and Jones) played (in this case batted) as the runs that he got, which put so much pressure on Australia. He was the main contributor in the 477; which led to the Aussie following on for the first time in 300 years; which led to the England winning the match. You could say that the Giles/Hoggard partnership or England's bowling won England the match but without Flintoff's century it would have been pretty much impossible for England to win that test.

As for the 73 at Edgbaston, England won by 2 runs and he put on 50+ with Simon Jones (who barely knew how to hold a bat) on a pitch on which Warne was (as usual v England) turning it square. Had he been playing instead of Flintoff, Kallis would not have won that game for his side!

But you did say that you couldn't recall one Flintoff innings that won England a test match. You didn't say that you couldn't recall a long Flintoff 150+ that won England a test match.....

So I guess the concensus is that if you want one of them to bat for a long period of time it would be Kallis and if you want someone to smash a quick fifty and grab some quick wickets it would be Flintoff?!

As good as Kallis is, most batsmen of the 2000s would rather have faced him than Flintoff.

I guess it's as simple as they (i.e. Kallis and Rooney) prefer to have a full head of hair rather than the natural receding look. As well paid sports stars they have the spare cash to pay for such treatments.

Advanced hair hats are just a disgrace, and Bollinger is by far the worst offender imo. I can barely tolerate the guys with the receding hairlines getting rugs but I draw the line at a stark bald nut being magically transformed into a full head of hair. There has to be some kind of ethical principle these guys are breaching

Butt and Asif found guilty, will serve time.

However long it is, it won't be enough imo. Doubt they'll see their sentences out either.

Heard a rumour Aamir plead guilty in his separate trial, not sure about his repercussions.

Butt's wife is due to give birth today.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15538516

I really hope that Butt gets to serve a good chunk of time. There has always been something about that smug arrogant little prick that makes me want to punch him in the face.

Any idea what the minimum jailtime is. I assume Aamir stays out if he pleads guilty and still has a chance of playing international cricket again. Anyway will be interesting if/how much time they do - I wouldn't expect it to be that much. ICC should have hit them both with life bans IMO seeing as 10years finishes them anyway and they should be trying to set a very strong deterrent

I think life bans are difficult to uphold legally, but I'd for for it if they woulld stand up. The main thing is that Asif and But serve some time and never play again. I hope I'm wrong but I suspect that Butt will have his smarmy face on Pakistan TV commentating within 5 years or so.

Regarding prison, 7years was the max i think.

This (almost, because I don't actually want to advocate violence)

The most ridiculous thing about it all is that he wasn't even that good a player; I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a someone somewhere who batted better than Butt and could have taken his place in the team; for certain the PCB could have chosen so many better men for the role of captain if they weren't always seemingly consumed with petty internal squabbles. As a consequence one can't help but be suspicious of the PCB hierarchy which put Butt there in the first place. Obviously having a captain who is amenable to fixing makes the whole process a hell of a lot easier as he wields enormous control over so many aspects of what the team does.




As for the Kallis/Flintoff debate, it's really difficult to choose one over the other because they are quite different and you have to balance the whole team, so other players in your XI would influence a forced choice between these two; it would really depend on the criteria for selections for the overall team. Of course, in an otherwise unrestricted GOAT XI the correct answer is that neither of them get close. Garry Sobers has the all-rounder spot sewn up, but if you want another in your XI then you've got Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Keith Miller and others ahead of them in the pecking order.

How does sending these people to jail actually benefit society, just sounds like one big waste of money to me. Their offense is fixing cricket matches (well bits of cricket matches), if you take away their ability to do this by banning them for life then I can't really see the how prison time benefits anyone.

Butt 30 months
Asif 1 year
Amir 6 months.

r u srs?

I dont dispute Sobers but Kallis could well finish his career with a higher batting average and lower bowling average. Imran Khan was one in a million, a top top class bowler who could bat as well, I have no real knowledge of Keith Miller and Botham is a decent shout, real quality bowler but his numbers don't really stack up with sobers or kallis. Imo Flintoff is like a not so good Botham and even Botham is a little way back in the queue.

I agree its pretty hard to choose, especially across era's because of all the external factors.

- Standard of bowling changing, theres no doubt this era lacks quality fast bowling.
- Wickets becoming way more batter friendly
- Fielding becoming infinately better, even up until about 5-10 years ago most players were pretty god damn awful in the field by modern standards.

Yeah, do you know how much is costs to keep someone in jail? They aren't a threat to society and surely they could pay for what they have done in some other way.

It's called a punishment and deterrent. You think that society should just stop people from commiting the exact same fraud again if they are found guilty?

People get sent to prison all the time for insider dealing etc. It's just like stealing. Money doesn't grow on trees, people are being defrauded and even those who don't bet but follow the game are being cheated.

First thoughts on the verdict - can't help feeling a little sorry for Amir, but wish that Butt had gotten more.

All max sentences:


Butt- 30 months

Asif- 1 year

Amir- 6months

Majeed (agent): 32 months


All will probably serve half. Not enough IMO.

@Cricketer_RDJ

Yeah all that is true but I just feel like they should be doing some good to make up for what they've done rather than sitting in a cell separated for the main prison population for x months costing us (presumably) far more than the 40-50k a year thats often talked about.

Is it actually going to be money well spent? At least with petty thieves and rapists you can say, well while they are in there they aren't stealing my stuff and raping my family.

I don't agree with it being a deterrent, any cricketer willing to ruin the games reputation for some money will still do it. The fact that the NOTW managed to stumble across something this huge makes me think its going on a fair bit.

Well, if they get an effective life ban from cricket the ICC can't really instist on them doing something good (working with kids etc) but hopefully they will end up doing something like that.

I think that this does send out a message. Even when the evidence was obviously overwhelming (seriously, how on earth was this not a unanimous decision by the jury?) Butt seemed to think it would wash over him, like he's just entitled somehow. Actually going to prison should at least make player think twice, but it will of course still happen. I guess you could say that the SA/Conje scandal prob didn't do much as far as being a deterrent is conccerned for Asian players, but this is a lot closer to home.

Well in the broader scheme of things they've pretty much defrauded anyone who has laid a bet on on the matches in question (& probably others) + they seriously tarnished the reputation of a big money spinning industry. I'm not a fan of big sentences but what these guys did is not that different to any other white collar crime case. Butt and Aamir definitely had to get time just to set a general deterrent for this kind of thing as much as anything else. Sentences for them were pretty fair I thought. m

It will be interesting if Asif appeals.

To Asif he (the judge) said: "Whilst no money was found in your possession, it's clear that you conspired to bowl a no-ball. There's no evidence on your part of prior fixing but it's hard to see that this could have been an isolated incident." - form cric info

I'm not an expert but I think this may get looked at. I thought that his age, guilty plea, show of remorse and the fact that there would still be a decent chance he can back to elite level would be enough to keep him out.

Serving time does him more harm than good imo, and obviously makes it way way harder for him to make it back to test level. Pakistan is different situation to Australia but over here if Don Bradman did time he would basically have 0% chance of playing test level again such is the way the games driven by sponsers, marketing and image these days.

Also re. ICC bans; i think i read on cric info that the police withheld from the ICC until only recently additional evidence on other potentially shifty incidences. So that may not be the end of them with ICC anyway.

I would love to actually read something about the mechanics of how they can actually get anyone to accept a bet on such specific events. If I was a bookie and someone wanted to bet on something that specific with me I would just assume it was fixed... Were they actually betting on those exact balls being a no-balls or is this a detail that the media have mis-interpreted/mis-reported?

Its only really a deterrent if their prison time is hard, but tbh you shouldn't need a deterrent from this sort of behaviour. Unfortunately because of the public nature of this case, anyone within cricket who is willing to do this has a blueprint of what not to do when fixing an event - dont deal with people you don't know and don't make it so damn obvious when you do it.

I guess in a way this is a legacy of the IPL and the rediculous hike in pay for some players, within cricket there are now 'haves' and 'have nots'.

Yes, of course you can make this sort of bet with lots of bookmakers and on exchanges, but in this specific case my understanding is that these no-balls were a demonstration that the fixer was legitimate--the players were bowling no-balls at these specific times to demonstrate to the NOTW that the players were in on it, then later a match or an innings or something more substantial would be fixed for money. Someone will hopefully correct me if I am wrong.

Re the betting - as I understand it, the no-balls were events that bookmakers would use. Just as bowling a wide is, or going for 40+ runs in the first 10 overs etc. I don't think it's actually that common to fix a game, though that no doubt happens sometimes.

Re the IPL - I don't know what you mean by that. The IPL reduces the chances of this kind of corruption (if not other types). When was the last time you heard an Indian player mentioned in this kind of thing? There used to be "issues" with many Indian players with several of their greats tainted. Now they earn so freaking much they'd need to be brain dead to get involved, so bookies don't even bother with the top-earning Indian players. Of course Pakistan don't have players in the IPL but this kind of thing has being going on for decades. Akram and loads of his peers were all at it.

Re Wasim Akram, just for interest, a quote from a judge in a case involving him was

"This commission feels that all is not well here and that Wasim Akram is not above board. He has not co-operated with this Commission. It is only by giving Wasim Akram the benefit of the doubt after Ata-ur-Rehman changed his testimony in suspicious circumstances that he has not been found guilty of match-fixing. He cannot be said to be above suspicion."

I read somewhere that when investigated, he couldn't account for a large chunk of his wealth. I also have vague memories of a quote when he basically admitted, under the strain of police questioning, to years of wrong-doing that he hopes people forgive him etc. Yet, he still does TV work in cricket etc. I bet Butt will also.