Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
Currently, cricket’s most infamous celebrity is a Marlon Samuels, a bellicose cracker of a West Indian batsman, a handy off-spinner and an athletic fielder justifying 24 raw years of youthful energy. Like several predecessors of his past, he has foolishly allowed himself to get ensnared in the vice-like grip of Indian bookies with seemingly nefarious, even underworld links. While it is still early days yet to demand Samuel’s final crucifixion, with the apprehension of more luminous tall names mushrooming in the weeks ahead, an uneasy question once again raises it’s hydra-head and stares at us with a fixed expression -- are cricket matches still being shadily manipulated? The answer is evidently --Yes!
I think most were casually dismissive about batting great Vivian Richards early warning forecasts that the India-West Indies ODI series was badly timed and an unwarranted affair, at least for the West Indies. They could have saved enormous travel time and unnecessary cricket, and instead prepared on home turf for the March biggie, argued Richards with passionate conviction. But he also knew that this was a financial deal struck by the fund-starved West Indies Cricket Board to make financial gains. And herein lies the real story. Unlike the BCCI, many cricket boards aren’t exactly having cash counting machines. In fact, some have been reduced to begging bowls; the disparity is overwhelmingly huge. An upstart Indian cricketer will probably earn a greater fortune in international cricket annually than a certain Mr Brian Lara. Marlon Samuels may have been aware of the preposterous disproportionate standards of economic welfare between India and the rest of the universe. Continue reading below
Cricketers may appear like demi-gods on the idiot box, but essentially most of them are simple, down-to-earth, ordinary guys coming to terms with unprecedented adulation off the field. And like everyone exposed to a sudden tsunami of autograph hunters and endorsement deals, they can be highly susceptible to wily customers. And not everyone has a strong will-power or commands high personal values. Mohammed Azharuddin, India’s former captain, is a classic case-history of a small-town boy entrapped in the glittering world of Armani suits, designer sunglasses and fashion-shows.
Match-fixers are professional bookies who want to be first among equals, by accessing forbidden official information. And since betting can happen on each and every trivial aspect of the game (who will won the toss, the first change bowler, the batting order, who will get run-out etc), you do not require to be a genius to calculate the humongous windfalls for someone with that prior primitive, basic information. The match outcome may or may not get affected, but large stacks of green-bucks could still be changing hands with insouciant ease. Since these are fairly subtle and usually unnoticed, unlike a dramatic collapse of the entire team, even single individual players can still play diabolical games and get away with blue murder. To fix an entire game, of course, there would have to be a greater circle of avaricious cohorts. After Hansie Cronje, that may be an Amazonian task.
The truth is that ICC does not yet inspire confidence that it has strictly enforced the anti-match fixing guidelines with a regimented ruthlessness. For instance, I would ensure that before very international game there is a brief precautionary advise/warning to players on existing rules and do’s and don’ts, just like the conventional safety belt and oxygen mask guidelines to airline passengers just before planes take-off. Players need to get psyched out on the massive risks they run if they stupidly engage in frivolous conversation with corrupt “hookers” of cricket.
Has ICC prepared a “profile” of the duplicitous match-fixer, and communicated the modus operandi to the players? Obviously not!
Honestly speaking, many players who willingly risk their professional careers are also those who are disillusioned, dismayed and despondent at the syrupy stories floating in all cricket corridors about how cricket administrators make golden pots of pirated loot from murky deals. Compared to the astronomical earnings there, cricket players get dry peanuts for their bravura on the 22-yard pitch. Have you ever wondered why the prize money for Man of the Match is such an embarrassing number relative to the Board’s entertainment expenses during the game? Isn’t that one of the game’s most glaring paradoxes? But does anybody care?
To accentuate matters, political factors can frequently incinerate budding careers, and injuries and bad luck can annihilate searing ambitions. And by the time eulogizing scribes call him “ experienced”, the myopic selectors think the cricket player is “ too old”. No wonder, most cricketers are terribly insecure human-beings.
Samuels may not have the wisdom of the white-haired Albert Dumbledore, but he does not look like a crook. It is not in his DNA. He is a victim of circumstances, and a flawed by-product of inept and corrupt cricket administration world-wide. Enron, Martha Stewart and Barings happened because the deepening virus of scavenging was happening at the very top. I think most of us, including the media principally, conveniently turns a blind eye to it. That’s the truth.
I don’t know about you, but right now my sympathies are with the crestfallen mother of Marlon Samuels.
