“Everything is fixed!” my colleague who is paid to know about these things, was saying at the evening editorial meeting where we were going to decide which IPL spot-fixing stories we were going to run in which page. “Everything?” I asked disbelievingly, so that there would be no room for either ambivalence or ambiguity. “Everything!” my colleague repeated emphatically. He began waving the picture of Mrs Dhoni sitting with Dara Singh’s son, who was turning out to be very chummy with the son-in-law of the BCCI head honcho Srinivasan. Both Dara Singh Jr and Mrs Dhoni were looking very happy, as if they had just won a few dozen lakhs of rupees in a single ball. “How else do you explain how year after year the Chennai Super Kings make it to the finals?” my colleague asked. “Because they are the best?” I ventured. He looked at me pityingly.
Not given to following the finer aspects of the game, I do not spend a lot of time watching replays of where and how a bowler sticks his towel or wristband or when and how a bowler picks his nose or the way he chews gum before going for his run-up to look for signs which way the betting wind is blowing. I looked around the room to see if the rest were following this logic. There was pin drop silence in the room where there were many CSK fans. How come Gavaskar had not seen anything suspicious? I asked, after all he has been around long enough to know and was all over TV. Gavaskar is fixed, my colleague informed me. What about a veteran like Ravi Shastri, I countered, not willing to give up so easily. Shastri is also fixed! They are BCCI’s boys!, my colleague declared. I invoked the name of Sachin Tendulkar, the reigning deity in the cricketing pantheon of gods, and told my colleague that I trusted Sachin. He was my idea of a moral compass. If he didn’t see anything wrong in spot-fixing, then the whole fuss was needless. “Tell me,” my colleague challenged me, “What has Sachin done as a Member of Parliament? Just one soundbyte from our Don Bradman would have cleaned out IPL. But he has kept quiet. Why do you think? He is keeping quiet because he knows which side his bread is buttered!”
I found it scandalous, my colleague’s suggestion. I am no authority on cricket but I concluded that my colleague was speaking with the authority that only sports journalists can summon, those purveyors of rumours, spewers of inconsequential statistics, carriers of changing room anecdotes and outright speculation and gossip inspired by crime branch leaks not fit to print. None of this would stand up in court. I enjoy conspiracy theories but this was too much. I am willing to buy into the theory that the UPA leaked this IPL spot-fixing thing just to get off the headlines. All this would die a natural death when IPL advertisers ask television channels to shut up or else. “What about Srinivasan’s son-in-law?” my colleague persisted. One of the CSK supporters in the room spoke up. “Hah! That means nothing. Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law was also dragged through muck like this. What happened? Nothing!” “Exactly!” I told my colleague, “If there are empty stands during the IPL final and no one watches it on television, I will believe you. Not otherwise!” And slotted the IPL crime stories for the sports page.
sudarshan@newindianexpress.com