Is there match-fixing or not? Was there ever match-fixing or not? The cricket-loving public of India will never know. For if it exists, it involves the big guns and will be hushed up and if it isn’t there then maybe it was never there.
If the media is to be believed, for no proof has been submitted to the public, 27 players and three teams were caught fixing IPL matches. If this is true then why have no charges been filed? Unless appropriate and timely action is taken, how can such purported cancerous and deplorable practices be removed from the world of cricket?
And if match fixing is prevalent then shouldn’t blame be fixed and the guilty hanged? Many would charge the players but that would be unfair. I have lived with budding cricketers, grown up with them, toured with them and realise that they have come up in life through tremendous hardship, seen abject poverty. They are but mere ripening fruits in a large garden of age old trees, waiting to be picked. Surely the garden that bears these trees which bear the fruits is also responsible for them?
Lets for one moment believe match-fixing exists. Just imagine this. You are a talented budding cricketer growing up through the match fixing era of the 1990’s. Come the turn of the century and you start to play international cricket. No sooner that you get your first cap that the bookies land up at your doorstep and offer you the deal of your life.
They promise you more money than you have ever imagined. It would take you a many years to earn such sums; and that’s only if you were fortunate enough to play international cricket for a few consecutive years. You love your country and decline the offer.
The next day another bookie arrives doubling the deal but this time he says, “Why worry? Even if you get caught the worse they will do is ban you.” You do remember that no criminal charges have ever been filed in this regard. No hefty fees leveled against anyone. You take the deal. You have sold your first match, fixed your first game. You are young and don’t actually realise what you have done. You have sold your country. You have cheated a billion cricket crazy Indians!
If match-fixing is prevalent then why didn’t the BCCI and the Government of India not crack down harder, set an example, through the first match-fixing era? Why didn’t the fans, the media included, scream shout and go berserk asking for justice? Why didn’t anyone do anything about the deplorable state of the game then?
Was it because a few scapegoats, poor lambs to slaughter, people without voice were available and were given minor admonishment, that too without a trial as a cover up?
Was it really that easy to end the heinous match fixing era if there ever was one?
If a politician, bureaucrat, player, owner or a board member is part of match-fixing, throw him into a cellar and forget the key. If we don’t do it now, we never will and then there really is no point in watching cricket anymore.