History Repeated as Tragedy

On a grey, slightly chilly, autumnal morning, Lord's, on this of all days, was a strange place to be. The air of confusion, regret and uncertainty was tangible, and more MCC members were reading the News of the World than can ever have been the case before. Buying it felt a little dirty, but it had to be done.

Although Umar Akmal finally showed his true colours, defeat came quickly, but the ramifications of what may have been done in the course of that defeat will take a lot longer to play out. On the face of it, the evidence is strong, and, if it's as solid as it appears, the ICC will need to hit this one hard to stand any chance of rolling back what may, in the Indian sub-continent at least, be a rising tide of corruption.

No matter the lifelines it's thrown, it seems as though Pakistan cricket will always find a way to drag itself back into the mire. But, as it sinks, individual images linger.

From Lord's I'll go with the haunted, shuffling figure of Mohammad Yousuf, dismissed twice in an afternoon on Saturday and looking for all the world like a shattered man. This was someone who lived and played through the last great series of Pakistani match-fixing scandals, and, in retrospect, you have to wonder whether his crushed demeanour reflected the fact that he had discovered that history was repeating itself.

And then you had Mohammad Amir, striding off after succumbing to Graeme Swann for his second duck of the game. If things go badly for him it may be the last thing he ever does on a Test match field.

For Test cricket to lose a player of his staggering ability so soon would be little short of tragic, and, for his career to end prematurely would be unutterably sad. This time, though, people really need to hang for this, and if the case against Amir and others is proved, there should be no coming back.

We move on. Or we try to. This, like a partnership between Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad, will run and run and run.

Capturing the Tension

With access to satellite TV and unlimited time it's been possible to watch a lot of cricket in the UK over the past week or two - India v Sri Lanka, Australia v West Indies, South Africa v England.

The New Zealand-Pakistan series is the odd one out. While there's probably a way of seeing it here I don't know how, and, well, I haven't lost any sleep about that as I have a life which I occasionally wish to lead. But the first Test in Dunedin was one of those games where it was possible to see from the scores just what a good contest it was. While the Kiwis ended up as worthy winners, the most significant aspect of the game in the long run was the brilliant debut of Umar Akmal, a player who, according to Osman Samiuddin, we're going to hear a lot more of.

This, from Iain O'Brien, captures the vibrancy and tension of the last day superbly from the viewpoint of a member of the victorious attack.