“Match-fixer, match-fixer, fix me a match,” Salman Butt hummed as he got into my Aston Martin (Bond’s favourite car and mine too) and lit me a cigarette. I laughed. This bloke does have a sense of humour. In fact, Salman was in a particularly good mood despite all the News of The World bakwas and police questioning. “How many fixers would have the pleasure of getting their ciggie lit by the Pakistan captain?” he asked jocularly. But to be frank, despite our making light of it, the recent matchfixing controversy has left me a bit shaken and stirred. I tell you I can’t believe I was conned by two journalists. Henceforth, I will be very vigilant. Which is exactly why I am driving around London with Salman and fixing a few forthcoming T20 games. You see, we can’t risk going to a restaurant and being spotted by some presswallah. Anyway, after having finalised some spot-fixing, I bid farewell to the Pakistan captain. But before dropping him off I gave him 10,000 pounds in advance. “When the team bus arrives at your hotel in Taunton (the venue of the practice match with Somerset), remember to wear a black shoe on your left foot and a sandal on the right. There’s a lot of money riding on it. The odds that you will do something as stupid as that is 1000:1.” Salman immediately assured me that he wouldn’t forget to ‘shoe-fix’. I am still impressed by his eagerness.
That apart, driving back home to Croydon I told myself I must find a way to make matchfixing a respectable profession. But how could I? Lost at sea (on London’s busy streets), I suddenly had an idea. Perhaps my old friends Vel Murugan (M) and Shankaran Stanley (S) from Chennai could help. The duo’s fame among bookies rests on the “historic fixing” of a match between the Mylapore Mavericks and the Katpadi Kinks way back in the ’70s—the Kinks lost the game despite dismissing the Mavericks for 15 runs. Bookie-lore has it that this was the first ever match to be ‘fixed’. Incidentally, the Kinks got unlimited biriyani at Velu’s Military as payoff.
So when I called M&S (they have a habit of talking simultaneously, the former on the main line and the latter on the extension), they heard me out and immediately came up with a solution: “Majeedbhai, the answer lies in showing corporate social responsibility (CSR). Pledge two per cent of your earnings for environment protection and half per cent to the BPL families in Pakistan and India. That’ll do the trick. Why, if you’re lucky, you may even be knighted.” Well, it took awhile for it all to sink in but M&S are rather persuasive. They later twittered me: “Corporates get away with dumping hazardous chemicals in our rivers and polluting our air by playing the CSR card. So Majeedbhai....” Well, I mulled over their advice...CSR...environment protection...knighthood...I have to admit, Sir Mazhar Majeed sure has a good ring to it.
(As imagined by Ajith Pillai)
