Kolkata : Mr.Sen is among the great lovers of cricket, who you find everyday, discussing cricket, dreaming cricket and swearing by cricket, leaving you awed by his grip over every bit of information about the ‘gentleman’s game’ that till the other day held complete sway over millions of cricket buffs like him.
But the recent ‘spot fixing’ scandal and the chain of events that dragged in the names of several Asian cricketers, have made them unable to weigh the sludge and the sanctity.
Suddenly they turned far less unsuspecting of the holiness of the game, falling susceptible to a whipped up cynicism just few months ahead of the World Cup, to be held in the Indian sub continent.
Shock after shock, as allegations and counter allegations fly, shaking the people’s faith in cricket, though much reamins to be proved. Apprehension is on the rise: are the skeletons really tumbling out of the cupboard? are the black days of cricket back once again after the 90’s ?
All hell broke loose when a British tabloid, ‘ The News of the World ‘ revealed that a man, named Mazhar Majeed, had paid Pakistan skipper Salman Butt 150,000 Pounds ( 230,000 Dollars or 185,000 Euros) in return for advance details about the timing of three no-balls in the fourth and final test with England.
Reports said Pakistan pacers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer had delivered no-balls exactly at the points of the match as wanted by Majeed, the betting master.
While the allegations of match fixing were raised umpteen times earlier, sometimes being substantiated at the cost of the honour of the men like Hansie Cronje, perhaps never before were the people so much aghast as the cavalier disrespect to honesty, as suggested by the reports, sought to strip the game of great uncertainty of its glory by making its most predictable.
Even as the International Cricket Council started an investigation and the accused Pakistani players were dropped from the T20 squad, the dust and fury grew thick with every passing day as Pakistani actress and Mohammad Asif’s former girl friend Veena Malek publicly accused her estranged beau of being a habitual fixer.
Giving the scandal a whole new dimension, Veena claimed during an interview to a national channel that Asif had links with an Indian book maker and that the Sydney test between Pakistan and Australia was fixed.
While subsequent media reports from London suggested that more cricketers of different nations, including Sri Lankan Dilshan Tilakratne were also involved in match fixing, Pakistan opener Yasir Hamid stoked the fuel claiming his team mates were involved in fixing almost every match.
Then emerged the name of Bollywood actress Neetu Chandra as a reputed Indian agency reported from Karachi that she was interrogated by the anti corruption and security unit ( ACSU) of the ICC for having links with c.
However, Neetu’s publicist Dale Bhagwagar denied that she was interrogated and that the actress had nothing to do with either Mohammad Asif or match fixing.
“Neither does Neetu know Mohammad Asif nor she has been to Indian Premier League parties or events, as reported. Her name is being unnecessarily dragged in the match fixing debate with unfounded allegations,” the celebrity publicist said.
Exposure of such names added more mystery to the game of cricket with so many popular T20 games going on all around the world.
Some Australian players also claimed they were approached by bookies in the past.
Cricket seemed to have slipped back once again to the dark days of the 90’s when many international cricketers got involved in fixing scandals and the game lost its colour to a great extent.
With the recent incidents, the memory of the past started haunting the followers of the game prompting players and officials to make hard comments.
Immediately after the incident, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who ordered an investigation, said the allegation of spot fixing “have bowed our heads in shame”.
Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan said the youth of Pakistan did not have role models and that the people in the country needed moral revolution to avoid the crisis the country was facing.
?Pakistan has corrupt leaders who are setting bad examples for the society,? he commented.
Meanwhile, demanding harsher decisions to be taken against the guilty Indian skipper M.S.Dhoni said, “the scandal has brought disrepute to all.?
?When you work hard, it feels bad if people say it was fixed,? the T20 World Cup winning captain said.
Sachin Tendulkar, said, ?Never ever in my 21 years of international cricket, have I heard that bookies approached Indian players.?
?The International Cricket Council (ICC) can take all the necessary measures required so that the game moves in the right direction…let cricket be a clean game,? he said.
Speaking about his 21-year career in international cricket, Tendulkar said he did not play for money, and for him scoring runs for the nation was more important.
But it was a double blow for cricket lovers in the sub-continent when Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan came under ICC’s Anti-corruption and Security Unit(ACSU) scanner for alleged links with a bookmaker.
The ‘Daily Mail’ claimed last week that Dilshan was named in a Sri Lankan Cricket Board report to ICC’s ACSU last year after he was allegedly spotted with a suspected illegal bookmaker in a London nightclub.
It is really a crucial challenge for ICC as well as for the other cricketing boards with the World Cup just few months away, to bring back cricket to its clean and clear avatar.
And with the names of so many Asian players getting involved, this will surely not help World Cup cricket when it will be staged in this sub-continent itself.
Moreover, it will be tough for the organizers to earn good revenues if the dark clouds continue to cover the world of cricket. Bad days for the game are ahead if immediate steps are not taken.