Least among the many insights provided by Jonathan Trott’s autobiography, Unguarded, comes this contender for the canon of classic sledges. The scene was Lord’s, late September 2010. Popular Pakistani stand-up Ijaz Butt, two years into his comic turn as the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, had just accused England of “taking enormous amounts of money” to throw the third ODI. England’s players, unamused, spent the night debating whether or not to withdraw from the series. And came within a single vote of doing it, too. At nets the next morning Trott met Wahab Riaz. “You going to accuse us of match-fixing again?” Trott asked. And Wahab shot back: “Your mum knows all about match-fixing.”
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