Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Four Corners – Fixing Cricket (2000)

play
clip
  • 1
  • 2
The good, the bad and the ugly education content clip 1, 2

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

The Pakistan cricket team has had its fair share of cheats and match fixers and yet there is one player whose bravery in the face of having his national cricketing career interrupted marks him as a man of true cricketing spirit. When Rashid Latif blew the whistle on the match fixing of his captain Salim Malik, it was Rashid who was dropped from the team. In this clip, he is seen giving free cricket clinics for talented youngsters in poor circumstances.

Curator’s notes

by Janet Bell

Liz Jackson has contrasted two Pakistani players. One of them is the corrupt former captain Salim Malik, and the other the vice captain and wicketkeeper Rashid Latif, whose career initially suffered because he blew the whistle on match fixing (he was eventually again selected for Pakistan’s national team and served as captain in 2003). The reporter, Liz Jackson, exposes both venality and honour amongst cricketers around the world. In this startling clip, she has managed to get on film an international cricketer exposing how his captain attempted to 'fix’ the result of a test match during the game. The material is simply and clearly presented, in a way that allows the startling content to have maximum effect.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows Rashid Latif, former captain of the Pakistani cricket team and whistleblower on match fixing, holding a cricket clinic with his students and explaining to an interviewer how he was encouraged to take part in match fixing. Scenes showing Latif bowling and batting at the creases provide the background for the voice-over narration that explains events. Majid Khan, former manager of the Pakistani cricket team, is also interviewed and speaks in defence of Latif. Subtitles are used when Latif is speaking on camera.

Educational value points

  • The clip exposes what can happen to a ‘whistleblower’, a person who alerts authorities to misconduct from within an organisation. Rashid Latif (1968–) was the first international cricketer to go to the press to expose individuals involved in match fixing. He was then excluded from the national team. His claims were vindicated by a judicial enquiry in 2000 that found Salim Malik and several other Pakistani players guilty of match fixing.
  • Latif’s story reveals how money can corrupt sport and explains that large amounts of money were offered to players as bribes to change the outcome of games. An illegal betting industry based in India and Pakistan is held responsible, with bookmakers and their gangster affiliates seeking to fix results to guarantee profits. It is estimated that up to $US1 billion is gambled globally on a single one-day international event.
  • Salim Malik (1963–) played international cricket for almost two decades and was highly regarded as a cricketer, as well as being a popular and respected captain of the Pakistani cricket team before being disgraced in 2000 by revelations of his involvement in match fixing. He was first accused of offering bribes to Australian cricketers to play badly during the 1994 series, but those accusations were kept secret for some years.
  • An immediate outcome of the match-fixing scandal was that cricket boards in most Test cricketing nations began official investigations, and in 2007 the ICC claimed it had eradicated match fixing. However there are suspicions that it continues, especially in Pakistan, a country that enjoys both cricket and gambling on match outcomes.
  • The clip is an excerpt from the Walkley Award-winning documentary made by Liz Jackson (c1951–) for the ABC program Four Corners, filmed at the height of the match-fixing controversy that had begun with Malik’s life ban and was followed by South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje’s (1969-2002) admission that he took money from bookmakers to fix matches. Jackson’s program aimed to expose why match fixing had escaped official investigation for so long.
  • When this Four Corners program was made, Latif had been left out of the national team for three years, but in 2001 (the year after the interview) he was again selected for the Pakistani national squad and was appointed captain after the 2003 Cricket World Cup. He retired from Test cricket in 2004 but has maintained his campaign to clean up the game. In 2008 he was appointed Pakistan’s wicketkeeping coach.