"They should be thrown out, simple as that. I don't think there is any other way to do it. If they have been involved in throwing games, they should be banned for life ... anybody who is involved should be thrown out."Personally, I would have thought that anybody who has accepted money from a bookmaker in exchange for information and only been fined in secret for it (before lying repeatedly on prime-time TV* in claiming that he had stopped speaking to said bookmaker upon becoming aware of his profession)... or who has tested positive for a masking agent for anabolic steroids immediately after making a rapid recovery from a shoulder injury (in time to play in a World Cup which he had announced would be his last ODI tournament) and only been sentenced to half the "mandatory" two-year ban for taking such a diuretic (before being allowed to play charity matches and do television commentary during said ban, much to WADA chief Dick Pound's dismay**)... should not rush to pass judgement.
*Warne's famous 90-minute Michael Parkinson interview, a show whose executive producers were Warne, Parkinson and Warne's manager, is right up there as a masterpiece of spin.
**Dick Pound has a way with words. "Poisoned by his mother? It's good, very good," said Pound of Warne's excuse, which he compared to lines such as "I got it from the toilet seat".
On the subject of Pound, I'm reminded of another story which is most definitely "not cricket," cyclist Floyd Landis' testosterone test in the 2006 Tour de France. Dick Pound's reaction?
"I mean, it [Landis' testosterone-to-epitestosterone level] was 11 to 1! You’d think he’d be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle?"Quite.
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