4 controversial moments that shook cricket to its core

#2 Match-fixing/Spot-fixing

There is perhaps nothing more damaging to the integrity of a sport than match-fixing. Unfortunately, cricket has had its fair share of match-fixing and spot-fixing scandals over the last couple of decades. Hansie Cronje is a key example that springs to mind. However, I am going to focus on the Test Match at Lord's back in 2010, since a Test at Lord's is as prestigious as cricket gets.

On August 26, 2010, Pakistan was playing England in a Test at Lord's cricket ground. Pakistan was bowling first when something strange started to occur. Pakistan was bowling a lot of no balls, particularly Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir. The strange part was that they were huge no balls. In some cases, the bowler's front foot was half a meter over the line. People knew that something was not quite right.

The news came out that night that Asif, Amir, and captain Salman Butt were being charged with spot-fixing. Scotland Yard arrested a man named Mazhar Majeed. Majeed had deliberately bribed the 3 Pakistani players to arrange a sequence of deliberate no-balls at specific times. Majeed would tell people this, who would then place exuberant amounts of money on gambling websites.

Each of the cricketers was charged with match-fixing and all received between 5-10-year bans from cricket, as well as jail sentences. This incident really did shake cricket to its core. The feeling was that if fans couldn't trust the credibility of a Test Match at the home of cricket, could they really trust the credibility of any professional cricket at all?