When we witness
brazen display of dirty money, glamor, sleaze and greed of IPL-5 it seems to
be inevitable sometime or the other or maybe it had been happening all the time
not exactly coming to light. A sting operation by a television news channel yesterday
exposed the evil of spot fixing in Indian domestic cricket, Twenty-20 cricket
and the IPL. More specifically, in the T20 format which has been promoted just
for commercialism and for making money.
Making money is
the basic instinctive characteristic in any modern human being. Some make it
the hard way honestly, some make it discreetly and some make it by hook or by
crook. In IPL temptations are limitless. The top cricketers who get
astronomical amounts to play in a particular franchise concentrate mainly on
maintaining their ‘marketability’ or ‘saleability’ for next IPL seasons and
therefore they are a bit protected from fixing games unless tremendous greed
overpowers them. But the fringe cricketers, who do command a price albeit with
huge disparities compared to the ‘pricey’ one, are never sure of making it to
the next season and therefore they are the most vulnerable parties for fixing
temptations. The sting operation confirms this trend fully.
Other television
channels have been devouring the story with utmost enthusiasm, because as the
IPL sells anything concerning the spectacle sells too. Though they have been
taking opinions from all cricket experts and the Indian cricket Board there is
a basic problem here. Who, pray, could be expected to give an objective opinion
on this most putrid phenomenon? The IPL money has been benefiting, gagging and
influencing a whole lot of ‘paid to comment’ people and of course, the very
news channels have been flush with IPL commercials and promos. How on earth
could they speak anything against the grand spectacle?
The Indian
cricket board (BCCI) had come out very strongly on this and said that
corruption in any form of cricket would not be tolerated at all. The Board had
an emergency meeting today and suspended five cricketers who were actually seen in the television sting. An enquiry committee had also been instituted to look into the
matter. But, pray, are they authorized to speak about curbing corruption leave
alone actually doing it? We need not speak about what Lalit Modi did right from
the beginning of IPL, but even in IPL-5 there had been widespread reports that
‘bought’ cricketers were paid undisclosed sums that did not at all match the
official figures shown. Surprisingly, this practice included everyone—from top
to the bottom levels. Now, these supposed under-the-table deals could be termed
as corrupt practices, if we are not wrong. Then, what about the movie stars,
film directors and even film technicians who have been visiting the IPL studios
and stadiums with unending regularity? Are they just friendly and
‘cricket-loving’ visits or how many ‘deals’ have been fixed all the time every
time? If leads eventually found by the enquiry committee lead directly or
indirectly to the IPL authorities or franchises can we really expect some tough
action? Unlikely, naturally!
Finally, how
does it matter anyway! Fixing or not, corruption or not the ‘cricket lovers’ of
this great country would always throng the IPL matches, because they only want
loads of fun, throat-fulls of screaming, most necessary outings and with loyalties
just like one-night-stands . And, they do it with their own money! The cynics
cannot even give the excuse of a waste of taxpayers’ money!
Only nincompoops
like me keep on complaining! How irritating!
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