The sleazy dealings of cricket bookies, the flow of hordes of black money, the spot-fixing involving some rotten-apple cricketers, the international links with crime syndicates, all as part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) extravaganza, have brought shame on a beautiful game that is an obsession for lakhs of cricket fans across the country.
If the people at large who were starved of entertainment and had found in this quick-fire Twenty-20 cricket a worthy evening activity of thrills now feel cheated as matches are “fixed” and a handful of black sheep change the course of key matches, it is sad but this was coming with what our moral fibre has degenerated to.
There is of course the larger question — are we condemned to suffer and be short-changed through scams in whichever field there is big money, be it through allocation of spectrum for mobile connectivity, doling out contracts for Commonwealth Games, giving out mining contracts or through spot-fixing and illegal betting in high-profile cricket jamborees like the IPL?
This is truly a reflection of the woeful lack of accountability in our system and yet another example of governance-deficit in India today.
The IPL, launched in 2008, has involved auction of players and purchase of franchises for mind-boggling amounts through an undignified system of player auctions. It is a nauseating spectacle year after year when players are auctioned as though they were cattle being traded.
What bigger blow can there be than the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, N Srinivasan, coming under a cloud as his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested by Mumbai police for indulging in crores worth of illegal betting in IPL even as he, in association with Srinivasan held the franchise of the Chennai-based Chennai Super Kings.
Meiyappan is also being questioned for passing on insider information to bookies and for aiding the process of spot-fixing in matches.
Srinivasan had no business to remain in office for a day after Meiyappan was arrested. He would have salvaged partly the prestige of cricket and of the Indian board had he made a graceful exit. But Srinivasan was defiant and unrepentant. Not only did he refuse to step down but the IPL website tried its best to obliterate all evidence that Meiyappan was closely linked with the franchise. This was clumsy and downright stupid because until then details of Meiyappan’s deep involvement and his description as team principal were there for all to see on the team’s website.
That there are Bollywood links that are slowly but surely coming out is hardly surprising because the Indian film world is a reservoir of unaccounted for black money. The more the bookies are quizzed, the more would the Bollywood links emerge. It’s another matter that they may be selectively released. What has so far come out may well be the tip of the iceberg.
Typically, we never learn to heed the warning signals in anything. On November 27, 2000, India’s captain during the 1990s, Azharuddin, was found guilty by a BCCI committee of match-fixing, while Ajay Jadeja, Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma and former Indian team physio Ali Irani were found guilty of having links with bookies. On December 5, 2000, Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma were banned for life by the BCCI. But on November 8, 2012, the Andhra Pradesh High Court lifted the life ban on Azharuddin, calling it “unsustainable”.
The then South African captain, Hansie Cronje, who was questioned by Delhi police in his confession on match-fixing on the team’s tour of India, had indicated that Azharuddin was the one who introduced him to the bookies. The CBI conducted a probe and published a report.
The BCCI claimed that it imposed life ban on Azhar, after he had admitted to fixing three ODI matches, in 2000. It lifted the ban on Azharuddin in 2006 and even honoured him along with other Indian Test captains in a ceremony in Mumbai during the 2006 Champions Trophy. The ICC, however, claimed that it alone had the right to revoke the ban despite playing no role in handing out the original ban. The Azharuddin case is indicative of how nothing was done to reform the system and stop malpractices even when a former long-time captain was thought fit to be banned by Indian cricket’s prime agency.
Last year in IPL-5, five cricketers who were uncapped were accused of spot-fixing and suspended. The writing was on the wall because the collusion between players and bookies emerged. Yet, since there was no big name among those suspended, the government and the BCCI fought shy of coming up with a stringent law to deter this evil. This apparently emboldened the perpetrators this time around.
Had it not been for the fact that one of the three players nabbed for spot-fixing this time was an Indian international — S Sreesanth — the media would not have focused so much on the scam as it did. Once Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan were quizzed emerged other names with Meiyappan’s arrest taking the controversy to the next level. That Asad Rauf of Pakistan also has come under a cloud with the ICC withdrawing him from the umpires panel for the Champions Trophy adds a “sex for favours” dimension in the whole murky business of spot-fixing.
The least that the Indian cricketing establishment must do now is to remove Srinivasan from the presidentship of BCCI if he does not quit on his own, to delink IPL from BCCI, put a more accountable full-time president at its helm, rethink whether it is right to allow politicians to head sports bodies including state cricket associations, ensure the spot-fixing scandal is taken to its logical conclusion and no one is shielded in the investigations.
At the same time, more stringent punishment for match-fixing and spot-fixing must be legislated as law minister Kapil Sibal has promised. There should be no-holds-barred action to punish betting outfits many of which draw their mentoring from crime syndicates abroad.
There is little point in scrapping the IPL. It is a huge entertainment for the people and a great platform for key players from cricket-playing nations to play in a spirit of bonhomie. Only its management needs strengthening. The same cannot be said of the Chennai franchise of IPL. If Meiyappan’s complicity in spot-fixing is borne out, the continuance of the franchise with India Cements would be violative of the agreement between BCCI and individual franchises.
Kamlendra Kanwar is a veteran journalist and author.
E-mail: k.kamlendra@gmail.com
