The Thin White Line: The Inside Story of Cricket's Greatest Scandal

by Nick Greenslade

Overview

The Thin White Line: The Inside Story of Cricket’s Greatest Scandal tells the story of the spot-fixing scandal of 2010, which sent shockwaves through the sport. It stunned the wider sporting world and confirmed the reputation of the News of the World’s Mazher Mahmood as the most controversial news reporter of his generation. It was the start of a stunning chain of events that saw the News of the World shut down, Pakistan captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir banned and sent to prison, before Mahmood himself ended up behind bars. This gripping, forensic account takes the reader through the twists and turns of those fateful days late one August and beyond. For the first time, it shines a light on the tradecraft of the News of the World team and how they exposed the criminal scheming of the cricketers and their fixer Mazhar Majeed. It reveals how deeply fixing had penetrated the Pakistan dressing room, and lifts the lid on the black arts of investigative reporting which would eventually prove Mahmood’s undoing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785317330
Publisher:	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	11/01/2020
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 6.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Nick Greenslade is the deputy sport editor of The Sunday Times. He was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read history. After a brief career in advertising, he began his career in journalism at The Nation magazine in New York and has also held editorial positions at The Observer and Daily Mail. He has contributed to the New Statesman, Time Out and Private Eye, and In These Times in the US. He lives in Kent with his wife and three children.

Table of Contents

Foreword 7

1 'They don't play for the love of the game, they play for money, women and food' 13

2 'It's taken about six months to get them properly working but I've got the bowlers, the batsmen and the all-rounders' 38

3 'Tomorrow, the News of the World is going to break the biggest story in its history' 62

4 'How could the rest of you not know what was going on?' 104

5 'Do you think cricket is corrupt?' 134

6 'We have two defendants effectively turning on each other with a view to wriggle out of what each other has done' 171

7 'I wanted to tell the truth but I didn't have courage' 196

8 'There's a difference between entrapping a criminal and setting up an innocent person' 216

Afterword 237

Bibliography 256