WITH Guy Fawkes night just a couple of weeks away, Lord MacLaurin has duly lit the blue touch paper and walked away.

The chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board certainly stirred it up ahead of England's first tour of Pakistan since the Mike Gatting affair in 1987.

With our boys just about to jet into Karachi to prepare for their three one-dayers and three Tests, McLaurin called for all the players implicated in the recent Pakistan match-fixing inquiry to be banned until cases against them are proven one way or another.

He has since back-tracked in a damage limitation exercise by suggesting to the ICC, the world game's governing body, that his proposals aren't implemented until after the Test series ends on December 11 in the interests of "international relations."

But it appears that the damage has already been done ahead of an already sensitive first England tour since Gatting and umpire Shakoor Rana went 10 rounds of finger wagging and Chris Broad stood his ground for longer than many an England opener's entire innings after controversially being given out.

"These people are trying to distract us. It's totally unnecessary and an attempt to distract us from the series against England," claimed former Lancashire captain Wasim Akram, who along with Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar, Mushtaq Ahmed, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Akram Raza was fined between 100,000 and 500,000 Rupees (£1,500 and £7,400) following a match-fixing probe in May.

England's coach Duncan Fletcher has run a mile from the "administrative" problems and rightly so.

Nasser Hussain's men have enough on their hands trying to win only their second ever Test match in Pakistan and build on their encouraging summer wins over Zimbabwe and West Indies, who aren't currently in the same league as the Pakistanis. Cricket can't afford to sweep all its problems under the carpet.

But such is the tangled web of match-fixing allegations that now seems a good time to make a fresh start.

Akram and company have had their knuckles rapped and should, along with every other player, be watched like hawks to make sure the game is whiter than white.

The Hansie Cronje case should be a watershed. And while it may be rough on Cronje to be singled out for punishment cricket needs to push on, learn from past experiences and concentrate on future cheats who should never play again if they are found guilty of match-fixing from here on in.

If Pakistan and England can produce a good, clean fight over the next couple of months that would be the ideal way to start.

WELL, are you excited ? After all, the World Cup is less than two weeks away and what's more, we're staging it.

You know, that World Cup. The Rugby League one. I must admit it hasn't sent my pulse racing either but any global competition where we start as third favourites can't be bad.

Australia and New Zealand will take all the beating, apparently, but England are a 10/1 chance with William Hills so come on the lads, whoever you are.

GOOD news this week for those of us without a dish or a cable. Snooker and the BBC have just tied up a new six-year deal to keep the major events on 'normal' television.

That should be just about be long enough for me to explain to the little Olivers which order the balls are supposed to go down.

And surely it also represents a golden opportunity for more sponsors to step forward. The game is desperately short of backers with this week's televised Grand Prix supported by snooker's governing body.

That's a scandalous state of affairs and snooker, bedevilled by internal strife, mustn't miss this chance to get its house on order.