Match Fixing Saga

Holier Than Thou
Match-fixers punished, but is it enough
What has CBI not revealed?
How will Indian cricket survive the aftermath of Match Fixing?
An ugly truth
A disappointing end

Holier Than Thou
Unleashing the frontiers of the Match Fixing Saga
By S. Zeyaur Rehman

Due to the recent turn of events, the focus of cricket has shifted from the field to murkier stages. Infact, the match-fixing saga is defying the frontiers of all imaginations and transcending the horizons of fantasy by its sheer depth and variety. We find ourselves placed in the middle of nowhere, without any proper clue to the beginning and end of the unending episode. All our perceptions and responses to this massive scandal has been determined by the particular point of time which we chose to react and the place to which we belong.

Can anyone authentically provide the exact instance, when the betting syndicate formally chose to prey upon cricket? Since then, it has claimed many a victims, known and unknown, famous and anonymous, punished and illusive. Spreading across continents and races over a period of time. The lurid details surfaced only when someone stumbled on to some piece of evidence somewhere.

The reaction that these evidences have called in different places is an eye opener. It brings to the fore the psychology of a nation and people in times of challenges and adversity. One has witnessed an entire range of responses varying from contemptuous dismissal to stern action for the one and the same crime.

The first major crisis surfaced in Pakistan, when Mark Waugh and Shane Warne accused Salim Malik. The PCB is a classic example of how things malfunction. Neither did it refute the allegations nor did it defend its players. Rashid Latif, Basit Ali and to some extent Aamir Sohail cried themselves hoarse about their knowledge of the sleazy deals, but they were silenced. Akram was dragged in and out time and again, Malik was banned for life and finally the board came up with a sloppy work in the name of the findings of the Justice Qayyum Commission.

The BCCI fared no better. After years of dilly-dallying and a number of controversies and contradictions, we finally arrived at some conclusion. That too has become a problem in itself rather than the solution it was intended to be.

Now as the reports about Aravinda de Silva are surfacing, the Sri Lankan Board is waking up to the fact that its players, including its longest serving Captain has been involved. So far there has been no sincere effort on its part to reach to the core of the issue.

That sums up the Asian scene. In the process we forgot about the 'real culprits'. The Aussies have cleverly managed to shift the blame to the 'sub-continent' as the place where 'such things' happen. The Aussies are boasting as the ones who first reported the matter and in the process everyone forgets that they were the ones to have accepted nay kind of money (of course for pitch and weather information).