Dhaka, Bangladesh. After the recent spot-fixing controversy involving the Pakistan cricket team, new claims have been made which have uncovered the longest running match-fixing scandal in the history of cricket. The Bangladesh cricket board announced yesterday at a hastily arranged press conference that the Bangladesh team has been match-fixing continually for the last decade.

“I can confirm that we’ve been throwing games for ten years”, said Yusuf Hussein, a spokesman for the Bangladesh cricket board, “we’re a small cricket nation and we don’t have a lot of cash so we’ve always needed the money. We’d love to be able to give one hundred percent, but for years we held back because of the deals we do. Without “other sources of revenue” it would be impossible to keep the team supplied with wraparound sunglasses, white war-paint sunblock and multicolored grips for their Ricky Ponting endorsed Kookaburra Big Kahunas.”

Bangladeshi players are seen here celebrating after performing well in an ODI, but they might be celebrating after performing horribly in a test match, latest reports suggest

Regular bribes from “some guy in China” “perfectly explains” Bangladesh’ dismal test record which has seen calls for the revocation of their test status, said Hussein.

“We go easy on Australia every time and we have a deal not to remove Sachin from the crease for less than a fifty, just look at the rubbish we bowl to that guy”, said Hussein.

“We’ve only had the opportunity to play three non-fixed games”, explained Hussein, “of course we’ve won all of these”.

Although two of these were against a West Indian side crippled by internal bickering, a fact that has led some critics to venture that Bangladesh may have offered the Windies players Grameen Bank loans to throw the match their way. The third was against a Zimbabwe side during the country’s hyperinflation crisis, which made the Bangladeshi taka particularly valuable in the unstable African state.

“It’s not an easy thing to do”, said an unnamed Bangladesh player arriving at the training ground in Oakley shades carrying a brand new Wormwood bag, “I was taught to bowl outside off and to use all my variations, now I spend all my time perfecting the wide, the no ball and the short leg side slower ball. Becoming a pie-chucker ain’t easy”. The interview was cut short as the player in question had to go and grease his hands ready for “misfield” practice.

The news has come as a shock to most cricket lovers, especially those in South Asia, who are now worried over Ricky Ponting declaring match-fixing as an Asian phenomenon. “Fortunately Sri Lanka is still out of it. I hope its meteoric rise in the ODIs was not result of any fixing.” a cricket lover expressed his deepest fears.

It yet remains unexplained why Bangladesh voluntarily disclosed their corrupt practices at a time when ICC is talking about weeding out corruption for good.

But Bangladesh might not be the only side involved in long term corruption. Critics have often said that it would be difficult to lose as often and as convincingly as the England team of the 1990s without some internal backhanders being taken, although others, such as Sir Geoffrey Boycott, disagree, pointing out that the team was just “a load of bloody rubbish”.

Faking News did try to contact the Indian football team to get their line on long term match fixing but the number had been disconnected.

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