0 Tweet of the Day - 21 May 2014

We were surprised to get this tweet this morning:

It's not that often that we are guilty of starting a trend. In fact critics would say that we are followers, rather than leaders! But for once, we were at the head of the pack.

There was genuine interest in the identity of Player X however. We posted Who is Player X? at 3.10pm on Monday. Around 5pm, we noticed a surge in visitor numbers, so we checked the referral source on Sitemeter. Most of the hits were coming via Google. We entered "who is player x?" on Google, and our post was at the top of the results list.

For the hours that followed, visitors poured in at a very steady rate. The numbers began to slow a little after the Herald named Chris Cairns as Player X, but Monday and Tuesday were probably our busiest days ever, as you will see from the graph below.

We're grateful for the spike in traffic, but we'd far rather it was at something other than cricket's expense!

0 The Herald names Player X

The NZ Herald has named Player X:

The Herald can reveal that the player being named as Player X in evidence to the international cricket inquiry is New Zealand legend Chris Cairns.
The Herald has been told by multiple sources that the former allrounder has been named in testimony to the ICC's anti-corruption unit (ACSU), referred to as Player X, by Lou Vincent and current captain Brendon McCullum.
He is alleged to have attempted to manipulate games, including in India when he was captain of the Chandigarh Lions in the short lived Indian Cricket League.
Cairns was let go by Chandigarh, due to what he described as an ankle injury.
In recent days, testimony from Vincent and McCullum has been leaked into the public domain, including alleged meetings between those players and Cairns.
When asked by the Herald on Sunday whether he was Player X, Cairns said he did not want to "speculate" but last night told Fairfax - Cairns was recently a columnist for the Sunday Star-Times - the allegations were false.

First up, let's get one thing straight. The allegations against Chris Cairns are just that; allegations. He is entitled to the chance to clear his name, and any allegations must be proven.

But if the allegations against Cairns are true, he is in deep, deep trouble. And he will have no one to blame but himself.

The next few weeks and months are going to be both interesting and distressing as cricket continues to unravel. That saddens us immensely.

0 Who is Player X?

The cricket match-fixing allegations get murkier by the day; the Herald reports:

New Zealand Cricket have released a statement this afternoon to express their dismay that Brendon McCullum's testimony to the International Cricket Council has been leaked to the media.
"We can confirm that Brendon is not under investigation by the ICC and his testimony has actually been applauded by them," the statement read.
"NZC has 100 per cent confidence in our captain and his role in tackling corruption."
Details of the match-fixing offer made to, and rebuffed by, the New Zealand captain have been leaked to media.
The approach, first reported by the Herald on Friday, is part of the ICC's investigation into match-fixing.

Whilst it is clear that Brendon McCullum reported the approach from Player X to cricket authorities, it is less certain when this happened. New Zealand cricket fans need to be reassured that there was no undue delay.

And here's how the fix worked:

McCullum was interviewed recently by the ICC's anti-corruption unit and, according to cricket corruption expert Ed Hawkins in the Daily Mail, has testified that he was offered more than $200,000 to fix games.

He met a "former international star" in a café in Worcester while on tour with New Zealand in 2008, when the offer was tabled. According to testimony, the former star said that "the big boys" in international cricket were doing it.
McCullum has also revealed that he was first approached in Kolkata during the 2008 IPL and asked the cricketer how the mechanics of it worked.
"Using the piece of paper X explained the basic principles which were to score below a certain rate for the first six or so overs and then towards the end of the game there was another split. X told me he had done this himself," said McCullum, according to testimony.
"[He] told me that potentially he could get for me from between US$70,000-US$180,000.
"X told me he had a good group working for him in the ICL and I understand this to mean fixing for him. It was my opinion then, as it is now, that X was actively concerned in fixing... I believed he was asking me to do the same thing for him in the IPL as others were doing in the ICL."
McCullum was told he could launder the money through property deals in Dubai. The name of a contact was provided.
Once McCullum had rebuffed that approach, the same cricketer then cornered him in Worcester to ask him if he had changed his mind.
"He was a hero who became a friend so I always found it difficult to say no," McCullum told investigators.

Player X has yet to be identified. But until he is, a good number of players and former players are unfairly under suspicion.

Player X was obviously a high profile player if he was a hero of McCullum's, and the fact that he became a friend suggests their careers intersected. We have our own suspicions, but if they prove to be groundless, then it simply underlines our point.

Not every international player has been involved in match-fixing or spot-fixing. Unfortunately the actions of a few have cast a huge shadow over everyone, and worse still, over the wonderful sport of cricket.

The sooner the identity of Player X is revealed, the better for all concerned, and for the sport.