Is the Metropolitan Police best placed to investigate Cricket?

Whilst it’s no secret that I am an avid cricket fan, l do not hold any specific loyalties to Pakistan. My biggest concern is for the integrity of the game which I wish to see maintained at any cost. 

However, what does strike me about the whole circus surrounding the cheating players is, how it is that the Metropolitan Police find the time to investigate and pursue them through the courts in the first place? This is especially remarkable when we have an organisational body in the form of the International Cricket Council (ICC) which is perfectly able to investigate such allegations and impose the ultimate sanction for any player which is a lifetime ban. 

The case for the ICC to investigate and impose sactions is even more compelling given that the original evidence of cheating surfaced as a result of a sting operation by the now defunct News of the World and given what we now know about the paper’s links with the MET. The emergence of such murky liasons should have been sufficient to transfer the case from the over loaded criminal justice system to the ICC, allowing it to get on with putting its own game in order. 

The MET should be freed up to manage other more pressing issues of law and order in London. After all, do we really want our top police force investigating issues of “delibrate no balls” in cricket? Nonetheless, It seems that allegations of corruption in the game of cricket take precedence even above those  residing in London accused of horrendous war crimes as I failed to convince the Mayor that this is a worthy cause meriting the MET’s time. 

So when the shamed players are sentenced on Thursday at Southwark Crown Court, l for one will be left wondering, was this really the best use of our precious police resources and are the police best placed to investigate matters of cricket?