Game spoilers

Mohd Asif and Salman Butt – These two names appeared in the headlines of some of the newspapers in India a couple of days ago. They are supposed to be cricketers and the names of those fellows should appear in any headlines if they succeed in rewriting the Wikipedia containing the records of some of the great legends of the game.

Going back more than a decade before, I saw Mr.Hansie Cronje, the then captain of South Africa, shedding tears in his dressing room, as he watched a disastrous and suicidal run out of Allan Donald and Lance Klusener which ruined his team’s chance of making it to, what would have been their first world cup final.  My eyes also got wet at that particular juncture not only because of seeing my favourite team losing their chances of going to the final but also due to the fact that their revered captain, who I thought was a great patriot then, wept for having missed a flight ticket to Lords in 1999. Hardly, I knew then that he was a crocodile whose eyes were shedding false tears.

A year later, we came to know of one Mukesh Gupta and his proximity to Mr.Hansie Cronje. For those of you who had forgotten this name, I would like to refresh your minds as to who he was. Mr.Mukesh Gupta was a business man who had indulged in illegal betting and match fixing in cahoots with Mr.Hansie Cronje. Later, we came to know Mr.Cronje was a regular doer of this crime in cricket and he had people like Boje and Gibbs assisting him. So, surprising it was and then this once respected captain of South Africa, Mr.Cronje  got labeled as a disgraced cricketer ever since. Having got caught red-handed, a crest fallen Hansie died in a chopper crash a few days later

In the aftermath of this forgetful incident in cricket, I felt cricket would become cleaner and those players who had been indulging in such heinous acts would learn to be honest. This was how it was upto a point of time. There were no such talks of match fixing thereafter for sometime.  But it was not to be. My hope of seeing a cleaner sport got evaporated soon. I saw on many instances that “fixing” had already become the order of the day. I realized that this had been there all the time and I am quite confident that such “nuggets”are still existing even if the latest sinners, Butts and Asifs are jailed.

These two disgraceful people in cricket, I am sure, are going to name a few more of their team mates as their accomplices. So, what are we going to do then? Will we ever be confident henceforth on seeing any no ball being bowled or a six hit off the last ball in a match that those sensational occurrences were genuine? I really doubt so. I am sure we are going to doubt every player from hereon if he is a cleanest player or not whenever he gets out on a crucial situation or whenever he gives 15 to 20 runs in an over atleast. So, mere jailing of these two is not going to clean the game. I have no idea what ICC is going to do. But all I can say what ICC has failed to do.

Even before when Hansie Cronje’s episode took place, there was a former captain of Pakistan who, after a few days of his retirement, admitted in public that he used to tamper the cricket ball using glass bottles during the match. Did ICC try to do anything at that time? A few years later, two Australian cricket players, who were now recognized as legends, had boldly admitted that they used to give information on pitches to bookies prior to matches. Can anyone think ICC doing anything at that time against such players?

These two things, what I have mentioned, should have been seen as symptoms for something big which was going to happen. Just like if a doctor overlooks any small symptoms it develops into a bigger disease, the same way, since ICC had not taken these things seriously, we ended up seeing episodes involving Hansie Cronje, Asif, Butt etc.

If only, ICC had reacted at those times, inflicting severe punishment on those players then this type of crime would not have been repeated. If these things were nipped on the bud with punitive measures as hard as they could take then this sort of incidents would not have happened at all. ICC was really lenient to the core and so now we are used to seeing such things happening almost regularly and every now and then a fresh case of fixing gets reported.

All I say at this juncture is whatever had happened thus far are just nightmares that ICC should try to forget. If ICC had to protect this game, getting ruled by book makers, they should review their clauses in cricket with regards to punishment and come out hard on players so that every one of them was left to think twice before doing such shameful acts.

Lets see if ICC can really take some initiative that allows only gentlemen to play this game.