Strange incidents and curious links

Conducted with ICC’s permission & featuring big names, Abu Dhabi T10 League has elements to attract bookies
The event has prominent names like Shane Watson (L) & Ahmed Shehzad | T10 League
The event has prominent names like Shane Watson (L) & Ahmed Shehzad | T10 League

While former Australian cricketer Dean Jones was recounting on TV the multiple virtues of cricket’s shortest format, T10, with the conviction of a man capable of selling spectacles to the blind, an eerie sense of foreboding gripped me. Jones, a revolutionary one-day cricketer who created scoring opportunities out of nothing, has seen it all and been part of all shrinking formats of the game.

He was there with the rebel Indian Cricket League, launched by Subhash Chandra of Zee in 2007, which paved the way for the IPL, singing praises of the league as an event of unprecedented value. He was right then, as T20 is now the source of major revenue earned by the establishment and its popularity, spread and influence is threatening Test cricket to its very roots.

On Sunday, he was speaking to a worldwide television audience while commentating on the Maratha Arabians versus Qalandars match of the T10 league in Abu Dhabi, featuring among other present and former cricketers, India’s own Yuvraj Singh, West Indian Dwayne Bravo, Australian Chris Lynn, Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga, Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, New Zealand’s Luke Ronchi and many other known names. 

In the eight-team league from November 14 to 24, England captain Eoin Morgan is the most prominent present-day cricketer and Hashim Amla, who retired recently, the most famous ex-cricketer. Among the 100 cricketers in the team lists, there are young and promising players who would be hoping that their performance fetches them more lucrative contracts across the T20 leagues in many countries.

Jones, in his preamble to the match played on Sunday, was telling his listeners how T10 is now the future of the game. It will take cricket to the Commonwealth and Olympic Games and make it possible for kids in schools and colleges to play this format as all they require is just 90 minutes to finish a match. The flourish and conviction with which he was making his point would have made many believe him, just as they did when similar words were spoken when the T20 format was unleashed a few years back.

With a team having one batsman more than the number of overs allotted, the scoring rate is bound to accelerate even further, with an average of 10-12 runs per over seeming quite easy to achieve. A day before Sunday’s match, I was privy to a conversation among some T10 watchers, who incidentally, are betters too. What was attracting them to wager money on this format was more action and less time to waste, something that Jones was emphasising while promoting it to his young playing aspirants.

For people who care little about the subtleties and nuances of cricketing skills and more about run/wicket equations in close contests, the attraction of ball-by-ball changing patterns of the match is a paradise for punters and betters.The International Cricket Council, which has sanctioned this tournament, being played under the supervision of the Emirates Cricket Board, must be aware of the dangers of such ventures which have attracted many bookmakers in search of potential “clients” who could help manipulate the odds.

Be it the IPL, KPL, TNPL or similar leagues in other countries, allegations of manipulation and approaches to players are becoming commonplace. The chain goes even up to the team owners, as the Karnataka league has shown. Incidentally, one of the co-owners of the Dubai League team Kerala Knights, Ali Ashfaq Thara, was arrested on charges of betting and “fixing” his own team in the Karnataka league.

The Dubai organisers promptly announced that they have dissociated themselves from Thara after the news of his arrest surfaced. The Kerala Knights, which had won the tournament in 2017, were led by England captain Morgan, who is now the captain of Delhi Bulls as Kerala Knights no longer feature in this year’s tournament. The police questioned another team owner in the Karnataka league, Arvind Venkatesh Reddy, who is the co-owner of the Karnataka Tuskers in the Dubai League and remains so till date.

For the record, Sunday’s game, which was making commentators Jones and Danny Morrison delirious in praise of T10, had an inexplicable ending. Qalandars from Lahore chose to defend so stoutly in their chase of the 107 runs made by the Maratha Arabians, that they ended up with a total of a mere 60 for 4 in 10 overs. Blame it on the unpredictability of the nature of cricket and its glorious uncertainties, even while we debate the truth of what Jones and the promoters of T10 would like the world to believe.

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