Somehow, men cheating in a game played in slacks and sweaters is just to awful to think of, but apparently it’s happening. In fact, cricket’s international governing body is taking the threat of corruption so seriously that it has banned players and coaches from using Twitter at all times during the World Cup, which is being played through April 2 in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
”When it comes to issues of corruption we prefer to err on the side of caution,” ICC spokesman James Fitzgerald said. ”We don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun but there is a chance that sensitive information could be passed on during matches in this way, even inadvertently, and we just feel that team managers’ phones should be kept for operational purposes only.”
Australian team manager Steve Bernard had been a regular tweeter during the past six months while the team had been playing, but his reports will not be seen during the World Cup.
”This recommendation is not confined to the Australia team manager but all teams in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and is certainly not a reaction to anything the Australia team manager has said or done in the past. It’s merely a precaution and is not something we are overly worried about at this stage.”
From Stuff.co.nz:
The ban comes less than a fortnight after Pakistan trio Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir received minimum five-year bans for their involvement in the deliberate bowling of no-balls in a Test against England at Lord’s last year. The ICC and its anti-corruption unit were heavily criticised for the scandal having been uncovered by a British newspaper, the News of the World, rather than by its own full-time investigators.
The translation is not nearly as hilarious. An easy way for a cricket player to score a point for the opposing team, and therefore manipulate the score to his choosing, is to throw a “no-ball,” which is a pitch that the umpire rules illegal.
And as for “fortnight”? I’m embarrassed to say that I have read most of Shakespeare’s plays, and still have no idea.
And of course we recall the recent scandal in Japanese sumo wrestling, in which wrestlers were busted for communicating with bookies via text messaging about fixing matches.
***
Cricketers banned from Tweeting during World Cup [NBCSports]
