The muck stops here. After seven days of sustained sanctimony from players, pundits and administrators on laffaire Cronje, it is time to face the grim, dark truth: match-fixing is our baby. Cricket may be an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English, in the words of one academic, but match-fixing is clearly an Indian game intentionally discovered, nourished and retained by us. So just who are we trying to fool by crowing about our cleaner-than-thou cricket setup?
Look at the dramatis personae in "Crickets Darkest Hour", an hour that has stretched three years and some more, and you will realise why "Cronje Capitalism" as practised by Hansie can be traced right back to our doorstep.
It is Indian bookies who are going around giving tonnes of cash; it is Indian businessmen of the real and underworld who are making calls and fixing deals; it is tournaments featuring India which are most suspect; it is to satisfy Indias huge betting market that other teams are being bribed; it is Indian players, past and present, who have gambled on matches they played; it is Indian players who have acted as go-between for bookies and players of other teams; it is Indian players who have received financial and other patronage from forces beyond the boundary...
And yet, here we are, being subjected to the daily and painful spectacle of the fattened calves of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (bcci) and the fattest one of them all in the International Cricket Council (icc), pretending like the proverbial monkeys who see/smell/hear no evil; dumping match-fixing, like nuclear waste, everywhere but nimby: Not In My Back Yard. The vicarious delight in catching a white cricketer with his pants down is all very well in the short run; however, the bcci is going to find it difficult indeed to hide the fact any longer of India being the breeding ground of match-fixing under the tattered figleaf that is the Justice Y.V. Chandrachud report.
As the chairman of the United Cricket Board of South Africa, Dr Ali Bacher, says: "Ive no doubt that it (match-fixing) is an issue that has taken place for a long time in the (Indian) subcontinent and it would appear that the authorities for whatever reason have not been able to cope with this particular problem." Whatever reason? Hey, brother, when the icc chairman Jagmohan Dalmiya counts Asif Iqbal - the man who perhaps started it all in 1979 and gave it a further boost in Sharjah according to his own teammates - among his chief spokesmen, "Lords, we have a problem."
In fact, the response of the "establishment" has followed a familiar pattern in the various stages of the match-fixing saga. It starts with errant arrogance as epitomised by the J.Y. Leles of the world dismissing all charges as "media concoctions". Then "stunned disbelief" from the likes of Dalmiya that such a thing could be happening to such a holy game. Then "utter shock" is expressed by figurehead bcci presidents like Raj Singh Dungarpur and A.C. Muthiah at the "dishonour" the controversy is bringing to the game. Then there is "smug satisfaction" from the poets and romantics that the controversy hasnt ensnared one of our own.
The net result: bookies, businessmen, betting syndicates, players, ex-players, commentators, journalists, film and underworld figures - Indians, all - have had a field day as the establishment looked the other way. Look at the panoply of pios (People of Indian Origin) in this whole picture and you will see exactly what we are talking about.
Bookies: Indian bookmakers Raju/John offered Shane Warne and Mark Waugh $11,200 (approximately Rs 3,50,000) to give away information on pitch and weather. Aamir Sohail says he was offered Rs 25 lakh before the Australasia Cup final by an Indian bookie. And Rashid Latif says he was offered
Rs 12 lakh by an Indian bookie to ensure that Pakistan doesnt cross 300 from the overnight score of 290/9 in a Test match against England. Greg Matthews, Stephen Fleming, Chris Lewis... they all say theyve been approached by Indians. An Indian bookie is said to follow Wasim Akram all over the place. Another Indian bookie, since bumped off, is known to have picked up the five-star hotel bills of a top Indian cricketer. Did Mr Justice Chandrachud speak to a single bookie before writing the report which the bcci has been using for two-and-a-half years now to justify its administrative inertia to clean up the mess? No.
Players: Soon after the Warne-Waugh scandal broke in December 1998, former New Zealand pace bowler Danny Morrison revealed that an Indian player had offered him $1,000 to take a telephone call from an Indian bookie. Aamir Sohail has gone on record to state that "one or two" Indian players approached him in Sri Lanka to perform below-par against the Indian team. And in the Warne-Waugh episode itself, former Hindu cricket writer R. Mohan told The Age, Melbourne, that "a former Indian player" had been the intermediary between the bookies and the Australian players. Latif has twice called Kapil Dev "the biggest gambler" of them all, and said that a host of Indian players called him for information. Yet, none of the accusers has been asked to provide further proof.
Media: Latif says an Indian TV commentator is a big bookie. He says an Indian player told him that during the 1996 World Cup, the commentator, after his stint on air, was all the time making enquiries of the fate of Pakistans match being played elsewhere. A prominent Calcutta bookie, "Jabroo", apparently picked up "free bets" of a leading Indian cricket writer. An Indian bookmaker is alleged to have picked up the tab for a party at a New Delhi five-star hotel held in honour of a journalist. Veteran Pakistan cricket writer Qamar Ahmed says when Pakistan toured South Africa three years ago, there were seven to eight applications from Indian journalists, "not one of whom was a genuine name". Have TV companies been asked to keep gamblers out of the box? Have sports writers associations been asked to vet antecedents of applicants and prevent misuse of the press box? No.
Given the frequency with which Indian names have done the rounds in just the last three years, the bcci can consider itself lucky it hasnt had a "Cronje-like situation" (as prime minister Vajpayee might call it). But, like in the Manoj Prabhakar episode, the latest incident gives a golden opportunity for the bcci to clean up its messy stables. Because, although everyone believes match-fixing is a global problem, it is finally an Indian problem as the "Indian-ness" of the cast reveals. If the bookie-player nexus is nipped in the bud here, it wont go too far. So how do we do it?
Reward the squealers: For shockers, let the bcci, the worlds richest cricket body (with revenues of Rs 16.63 crore and reserves of Rs 44 crore), announce a huge reward, say Rs 1 crore, to anybody - player, administrator, journalist, even a bookie - who will give concrete information of the involvement of players/bookies in match-fixing and/or betting. The bcci has bought the silence of too many people with plum posts and other carrots. But if youre serious about stopping the menace, create the incentive for people to squeal. If no names come out, the bcci can consider its money well spent.
Probe further: For starters, as the Union sports ministry has indicated, reopen the match-fixing inquiry. Since everybody - including the bccis own former president, I.S. Bindra - believes that neither the bcci nor the icc have it in them to take the probe to its logical end, hand it over to a specialised investigating agency. Many believe and rightly so that it was only because the police were in charge in the Cronje episode that the case was resolved so quickly and so conclusively. Hand over the fresh probe to the cbi as demanded by Tiger Pataudi and Bishen Singh Bedi. Even if it doesnt prove anything, it will at least dispel the air of suspicion that threatens to engulf even honest, innocent cricketers.
Spread the net: Lets be honest. No amount of match-fixing is going to throw up any hard evidence of wrongdoing. You wont see any exchange of cash. There wont be too many audio or video tapes lying around. And given the suck-up-and-be-rewarded system that Dalmiya put into place, no player or coach or manager or administrator or mediaperson is going to sing. So, adopt a multi-pronged approach to catch the culprits. Ask the Income Tax department to reveal who the "former Indian captain" is who declared Rs 16 crore under the vdis and publicly blacklist him from the game. Make it mandatory for players to declare their assets every year. Ask the Enforcement Directorate and Department of Revenue Intelligence to chip in. Find out who is gifting Rs 35 lakh-worth Mercedes Benz cars to players. Ban all receipt of "gifts" over, say, Rs 10,000.
Publicise or perish: Justice Y.V. Chandrachud wants his report to be made public. N.K.P. Salve, who is a member of the iccs match-fixing probe, wants it to be made public. Why is the bcci afraid to do so? And why is it hiding behind the Union home ministry which, too, doesnt want the report published? If the report is a clean chit, surely there are a lot of PR points to be earned by letting the whole world know? The bcci thinks not. Let them tell us why. Similarly, make it mandatory for the bcci to publicise the "tour reports" after every tour. Bindra says two managers, a physio and a coach, have told the board that they suspected a few players. Lets read those reports. As one former manager, Sunil Dev, says: "I believe the performance of some players is definitely influenced by outside forces."
Sanitise the set-up: Bar the use of cellphones from the dressing room during play. Monitor telephone calls. Ajit Wadekar denies he had the telephones of three players tapped. Encourage managers to do so. Prevent shady characters from entering "players only" rooms. Instruct reporters associations to be choosy in handing out press accreditations. Tell TV software producers to remove the black sheep from their ranks. Place "minders" in hotel lobbies where the team stays, here and abroad, to prevent bookies, imposters and others from sneaking in to make offers to players. Crack down on players betting on matches. As former bcci secretary C. Nagaraj says: "Take stringent steps to curb betting within stadia because match-fixing is a natural corollary of that."
Dont sign ctbt: Although the biggest incident of match-fixing has involved a Test match, its clear from the long list of incidents that its one-day cricket thats provided the boost. Cut down on the odis; dont sign the Comprehensive Test (match) Ban Treaty that the mammon-worshippers within the board are inclined to. Make it clear that if cricket needs to be globalised, it is also the responsibility of the other Test-playing nations; not just our own. Ask players to be selective in playing masala matches. If necessary, put players on contract and decide what matches they can or cannot play. But as Latif says: "The bcci wont do anything. Look at the kind of tournaments they organise in Kenya, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh..."
Brown, white or yellow, match-fixing is now seen to be a global problem. But if it cleans up its act instead of brushing it under the carpet, Indian cricket has the chance to help the international game combat a spreading virus. If it can cut off the nexus between bookies and players; if it can have betting legalised in cricket to release the stranglehold of the betting syndicates and underworld on the game; if it can pursue the probe further and hand out exemplary punishment to the guilty... Indian cricket can yet contribute in a positive manner to what is clearly its contribution to the cricket-playing world. But to do all that, Indian cricket has to be honest enough to admit that it has a problem on its hands. The "Wailing Cassandras" have so far shown no signs of doing that.
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