So much has been said and written about Pakistan Cricket and its latest debacle lately. And for good reason.

Since allegations of match-fixing, spot-fixing, fancy-fixing, or whatever you want to call this type of sports fraud, erupted against Pakistan’s national cricket squad on August 29, opinions on the incident (even from those not involved in the sport) seem to be as common as bladders: everybody’s got one.

If you have been too busy recently and feel like you have missed out on some of the precious quotes and moments from the last 10 days of cricket history, here are some important and colourful ones, including snippets of some news reports, which track this unfolding story, all in one spot:

From Mazher Mahmood and Amanda Evans’ original News of the World Report:

“In the most sensational sporting scandal ever, bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif delivered THREE blatant no-balls to order.

Their London-based fixer Mazhar Majeed, who let us in on the betting scam for £150,000, crowed “this is no coincidence” before the bent duo made duff deliveries at PRECISELY the moments promised to our reporter.”

“Having already trousered a £10,000 upfront deposit — which he insisted had gone to the stars — Majeed sat in our west London hotel room at the Copthorne Tara on Wednesday night and eagerly counted out the £140,000 balance in bundles of crisp £50 notes — our “entry ticket” into his already successful betting scam.”

“At one stage Majeed told us our syndicate could make ‘absolutely millions, millions’ by paying him up to £450,000 a time for info on matches, then placing bets on the fixed outcome. And he tried to excuse the players’ shameful behaviour, claiming: ‘These poor boys need to. They’re paid peanuts.’”

From Crikey Sports:

The fact is, that News of the World’s exposé into match fixing involving Pakistan players in the Test series against England is destructive. Its report is damning and, dare I say it, fine investigative journalism.

News of the World reporter Mazher Mahmood, a.k.a the “Fake Sheik”, has made a career from journalistic entrapment. His targets have been royalty, English football coach Sven-Göran Eriksson and a child actor of Slumdog Millionaire.

Despite what you think of his methods — or ethics — his report for News of the World is compelling.

From cricketer and captain Salman Butt during a press conference in which he appeared with his team’s manager, Yawar Saeed:

“These are just allegations. Anybody can stand up and say things about you — it doesn’t make them true.”

“They include quite a few people. They are still ongoing, and we will see what happens. There is nothing I have seen, or been shown, that involves me.”

From the manager of the Pakistan team, Yawar Saeed, during a press conference:

“Obviously we are not delighted about it; we are sad. It was very sober feelings in the dressing room”

“We didn’t have a cup of coffee either this morning. We didn’t want one, because I was talking to the team. A lot had happened overnight, and it was my duty to talk to them, and get their focus back on to the match.”

“Scotland Yard officers came, interviewed, came to my room, went to his [Butt’s] room and two more. They were there for about two or three hours. After that, I asked them if there was anything we could do. They said ‘no’.”

From ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat:

“We will not tolerate corruption in this great game.”

From former England captain Michael Vaughan via Twitter:

“I don’t see how they can get out of this one.”

From a Guardian editorial on August 30:

Cricket and betting have form together. The game only became popular in 18th-century England because the aristocrats who sponsored the early clubs got their kicks from betting on games. With betting, all too often, came cheating. “What we want is no umpires and fair cheating all round,” the 1920s Yorkshire cricketer Roy Kilner used to say of the perfect Roses match — if Neville Cardus is to be believed. Even today, cricket cheating thrives in many forms: charges of match-fixing and betting coups coexist with a culture of ball-tampering, sledging, time-wasting and refusal to accept umpires’ decisions. So the reaction to this week’s allegations that Pakistan’s bowlers have been delivering no-balls as part of a betting fix should be kept in perspective. Cricket in shock? Puhlease. Not cricket? Get real.

From Angus Porter, head of the Professional Cricketers Association, a group representing first-class cricketers in England and Wales, on September 1, in advance of the last two T20 matches between England and Pakistan:

“Speaking on the behalf of the England team, we can say we think it preferable if those individuals who are named do not play in the forth coming series.”

From Australia’s The Mercury from September 1:

“Nothing is sacred to the match-fixers. Not a Test match at the home of the sport, Lord’s. Not the youthful promise of an 18-year-old bowler, one of the most talented in the game. Not even the pride of an impoverished, cricket-mad Pakistan, which is struggling with its biggest natural disaster in years.”

“The game becomes so tainted that any exceptional feat or great achievement is suspect, in the same way as drug abuse has cast doubt over the Tour de France and most of the sprint events in athletics. Who would pay good money or even TV rights for a dubious contest?”

From an editorial in The Kathmandu Post on September 1:

“Constant allegations of match and spot-fixing are sure to dwindle interest in Tests further and with it will go the romantic image of the game, played in serene, lush-green country settings by well-bred gentlemen.
That would not necessarily be a bad thing for the survival of the game as a global sport. Cricket has had to compete with other popular sports like football and basketball, which, like it or not, would not be possible without throwing some money around. But the downside of excess money entering the sport has been there for everyone to see as well: from the deeply flawed bidding process for new IPL franchisees to the packed, year-round playing schedules of modern cricketers. And when some players are deprived of all the money sloshing around–as the Pakistani players have been due to their exclusion from lucrative deals IPL last year–they might well feel justified to take shortcuts.”

From the High Commissioner of Pakistan to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, after Test captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif pulled out of the rest of their team’s England tour:

“They [Butt, Amir and Asif] maintain that on account of the mental torture which has deeply affected them, they are not in the right frame of mind to play the remaining matches.”

“I believe in their innocence.”

And then this also from Pakistan’s High Commissioner, questioning the authenticity of the evidence, before he said he thought the players had been set up:

“Were the videos timed, were they dated… do you have the answers to these questions?”

From Yasir Hameed, via a statement he gave with the PCB, after a video emerged showing him saying that Pakistani cricketers “were doing it (fixing) in almost every match”:

“It seems that Abid [undercover reported Mazher Mahmood] had a hidden camera which I was totally unaware of. I then left the hotel with my friend and came back to where I was staying. Two days later Abid then called me and offered me £25,000 to give a statement against the three current players under investigation, which I immediately refused and put the phone down. I neither called nor answered any calls from Abid after this conversation… Subsequently, I received a text message from Abid Khan from his number… which I found to be intimidating… However, I decided not to respond or react. I brought the matter to the attention of PCB.”

From Anorak.co.uk on September 5, after the video of Yasir Hameed was released showing him confirming the shady dealings of Pakistani cricketers:

“ALL day long Sky News has been leading with news of the Pakistan cricket fix allegations. But ‘The most sensational sporting scandal ever’ has been utterly overtaken by news that prostitute Jennifer Thompson says she was shagging Manchester United footballer Wayne Rooney while his wife Coleen was carrying their child.

Pakistan batsman Yasir Hameed does his bit to keep cricket on the front page… But it’s not enough: football trumps cricket. Rooney and not Pakistan features on the NoTW’s front page. So the biggest scandal in sport — ever! — is trumped by a claim that Wayne Rooney does it with prostitutes.

The advice to Pakistan’s cricketers is to stay quiet and let it all blow over. The biggest sporting scandal in the history of everything, er, isn’t. And with the domestic cricket season drawing to a close the scandal will soon be forgotten. It lacks that vital ingredient that makes a story stick in the public’s mind: sex.”

From Former England captain Michael Atherton:

“It is worse than doping, because the fixer is deliberately trying to underperform, so deceiving the paying public.”

From Shahid Afridi, speaking about Yasir Hameed, after Pakistan’s T20 defeat in Cardiff:

“Mentally he is 15, 16. I don’t know with who he was sitting or in which situation he gave this message … We have known him for a long time and we can expect anything from him. He has been doing these type of things a lot of times.”

From Shahid Afridi as reported by Jang:

“I had a separate meeting with Mohammad Amir and told him he had been stupid to put his promising career at stake for whatever reasons.”

From English paceman Stuart Broad:

“There’s always distractions in international cricket, probably more than most this week, but as players you’ve got to be able to shut things out and focus on what you’ve got to do.”

From Former England captain Geoffrey Boycott, writing in the Telegraph:

“I am particularly concerned about the size of the no-balls sent down by Mohammad Amir. Professional cricketers play the game within small fractions. It is hard to see how he could have run up and bowled a no-ball by 12 inches without realising he is going to overstep. In normal circumstances, he would know at least two strides before he gets to the crease, and would abort his run-up.”

“Now look at the Indians and their response to the revelations surrounding the Hansie Cronjé affair 10 years ago. Mohammad Azharuddin and Manoj Prabhakar were among the players implicated. They were never convicted in a criminal case, but the Indian board was strong. They never played for India again, nor did Ajay Jadeja, even though his ban was quashed in 2003. The selectors cannot be forced to pick people they don’t want to pick. Having these sort of players in your dressing-room can damage the team’s morale, as well as its credibility.”

“Shakespeare wrote that Caesar’s wife must be above reproach. The same must be true of cricket. And that means dealing harshly with anyone who casts a shadow on it. If the ACSU aren’t prepared to take this case seriously, they should hand this case over to the former players — people like myself, Ian Botham and Michael Holding, who played tough, competitive cricket throughout our careers. I can promise you, we wouldn’t mess about.”

From India’s captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, on September 7 at a press conference:

“As far as the corruption unit [ACSU] and their functioning are concerned I think that they are doing a good job… I think that if they [ACSU] become stricter they will start intruding on the privacy of players.”

Also from Dhoni, while speaking to NDTV news:

“Harsh decisions need to be taken.”

From the Associated Press on September 7, nine days after the scandal erupted:

“Pakistan’s cricketers were being investigated by the ICC for fixing in a one-day series even before their contentious fourth test against England last month.

The International Cricket Council suspended three players last week after charging them under its anti-corruption code but had already written to two players to ask for telephone records as part of an investigation into possible contact with bookmakers.

Britain’s newspapers widely reported that test captain Salman Butt and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal were the players contacted.”

From Yawar Saeed, on the September 7 allegations:

“There will be absolutely no comment … I am not going to say anything on the allegations. They are there and we are here, getting on with our jobs on the tour.”

Vote in the poll:

Is the spot-fixing controversy involving Pakistan’s national squad a conspiracy to tarnish Pakistani cricket?

• No (52%, 150 Votes)
• Yes (46%, 131 Votes)
• Undecided (2%, 14 Votes)

Total Voters: 286