Cricket And Fixing: ICC Champions Trophy Begins!
The ICC Champions
Trophy-2013 in England and Wales begins with the inaugural match between India and South Africa today. At a time when
cricket or more specifically Indian cricket has been hyped to the height by the
media for all the wrong reasons. The raging IPL Spot or Match Fixing scandal
has cast a shadow of grievous doubt on players of Team India, its bosses
and administrators. Fittingly enough Team India has a captain who had been
right royally gagged by his corrupt cricket Board bosses and the right royally
loyal captain has been obsequiously observing
the gag order even in England. Add to this his alleged conflict of interest
concerning a management firm where he acquired stakes and put in his favorite
cricketers as clients for whom he enjoyed the absolute authority of selection
for the national team. Why bother! His cricket Chief had a more sinister
conflict of interest with his son-in-law—the boss of an IPL franchise CSK
captained by the Indian national captain—in jail and yet nobody dared ask him
to resign. Therefore finally it is the ‘conflict of interest’ for the genuine
Indian cricket fans who will continue to have doubt over all the possible
results for India—victory,
loss or tie. Only abandonment of matches due to rains is above doubt, because
rains cannot possibly be fixed!
However, from
the extremely ‘cricket’ part of the scenario Team India seems to be in a good
nick for the tournament after winning the first warm-up match against Sri Lanka
and crushing Australia in the second. But the top order batting is yet to
deliver, and it was largely thanks to Dinesh Karthik and captain Mahendra Singh
Dhoni himself plus the young Indian fast bowlers. Like India South Africa
is also a line-up of young and relatively inexperienced players, but more worryingly
without the services of Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis who opted out due to personal
reasons. While all Indian players have benefited from the ‘cricket’ of IPL
despite the mess, the South African ‘cricket’ stalwart of IPL Dale Steyn also
looks doubtful. Cardiff pitch is likely to help
both batting and pace bowling, and considering Indian vulnerability to pace in
greener pitches South Africa
still could dominate India.
Tagged as ‘perennial chokers’ in big tournaments South Africa too could crumble if
Indian batsmen and fast bowlers deliver. Fixing or no fixing any of the three
possible results are immensely plausible in this big match.
Another ‘cricketing’
highlight of the ICC Champions Trophy-2013 is the new set of rules for one-day
cricket becoming effective from this tournament. As a big help to bowlers now
there will be two new balls from both wicket ends which may of course negate
out reverse swing and the bowlers can now bowl two legal bouncers an over. The other
rules are; five fielders will have to kept within thirty yard circle throughout
the matches and there will only two sets of powerplays—the first mandatory ten
overs followed by the batting powerplay that will have to be taken before the
40th over.
So then, there
is lot of ‘cricket’ despite fixing. What if all cricket legends who still
maintain ‘loyal silence’ flocking back to egg you onto cricket! What if all the
‘paid to comment’ cricket experts flocking back to take you ahead in the
encounters! You are still absolutely your own master to decide what to do with ‘cricket’
and ‘fixing’!
As for the ‘fixing’
part, Gurunath Meiyappan and Vindoo Dara Singh were granted conditional bail by
a court in Mumbai on 4th June even after being remanded to judicial
custody till 14th June on 3rd June. More hopefully, Delhi
Police had applied MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act-19990 against
all 26 bookies and cricketers including Sreesanth on June 4. This will enable
Delhi Police to file charge-sheets within six months and the accused will be
able to plea for bail for at least one month. Since yesterday interrogation of
the boss of Rajasthan Royals (RR) and his business associates by Delhi Police has
been going on. As per latest reports Delhi Police say that RR Boss Raj Kundra, husband of joint owner and Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, had confessed to placing bets on his own team and his passport had been seized. After Gurunath of CSK Kundra becomes the second team boss who have been used to betting on their own teams revealing strategic information to the bookies.
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