Corruption and Cricket
Corruption and cricket have been married since time immemorial! The limelight on match fixing was made visible to the world when Hansie Cronje, Daryll Cullinan, Manoj Prabhakar were all exposed in the early 2000. It’s almost since then there are many critics who question the credibility of close wins, team changes for crucial matches and crucial bowling changes in tight matches. It is fair to say that cricket has been viewed with magnifying class many times and whenever any unpredicted team wins then it becomes easy for the writers to comment about the term “match fixing!”
Just as cricket has evolved over the years, the match fixing has also evolved and has taken new dimensions over the past decade. The term now is called “spot fixing”, bowlers fixing, “no – ball fixing” and so many other versions. Many would have thought the “no – ball” bowled by Asif in the match against England was a manual error but little the people would have thought that it’s because he was asked to bowl by the bookie and he obliged to him rather than to the team. Many questioned the “goal – keeping”, I mean the so called wicket – keeping of Kamran Akmal in the series against Australia where he missed so many simple chances and the lose against Australia at Sydney made headlines not because of the victorious Aussie team but because of the fixing that would have been made by Pakistan.
Recently, the CEO of ICC, Lorgat mentioned that it would be better if betting can be made legal in India as the fixing made by the bookies are crossing the boundaries and there could be an involvement of them in every match. Hashan Tilkaratane, hit the headlines recently that he was quoted saying that “SL cricket has been amidst the match fixing ruins for many years and he also questioned the team change made by Sanga against India in the WC final match. Suraj Randiv was brought into the squad for the only match, which is the final. He was preferred over Mendis and other bowlers in the squad.
Cricket – then gentleman’s game – has not been so gentle and polite for the past decade. A system has to be brought in place to check the wealth status of each and every player over a period of time. But as they say, it is the responsibility of each and every player to play fair and hard cricket and has to realize that he is selected as a player to represent a country and he should be an ambassador to it!
Let’s see what it takes to make cricket “corruption free” in the years to come!
Tags: Corruption, Credibility, Cricket, Gentleman’s Game, Match Fixing, Spot Fixing, Wealth Status
