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Mark
Waugh, Warne and Moody started it in 1994-95 and since then every Tom,
Dick, and Harry has had his turn in this “now getting murkier day by
day” match–fixing saga. What Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, of course,
never realized was that one-day their names, too, would appear in the list
of the “accused”. Manoj Prabhakar did the same episode in India but
almost the results are same. Now the question is, where do we go from
here? Whatever people might think or say, one thing is sure, no one has
been comprehensively proved guilty without doubt, nor does it seem
possible happening. As all three charges brought up by many and sundry,
none can be proved in a court of law. A few meaningless bans here, and
there don’t count much. The
Pakistanis had their umpteenth report before they could ban Malik &
Ataur-Rehman. While Malik’s career was as good as finished, Rehman was
anyway a non-entity I the game. The Aussies too did an enquiry, albeit
secretly, against Warne and Waugh. They were fined a paltry sum and they
moved on. Hansie Cronje has been “fixed” by his own confessions. But
day in and day out, one gets to hear a new story of how someone tried to
‘fix’ one match in some distant past. People
would like to know where there “crusaders of truth” when the events
were taking place in reality. Why are there people dirtying the game by
making vague accusation after such long gaps? Guaranteeing their places in
the team? This-muck raising has gone for too long now. Even the CBI admits
it has no foolproof case against everyone accused. So at the end, can the
players be tried? No & somewhat yes. Get it clear folks; we do not
have any law that deals with match fixing, effectively. Indeed, with all
these controversy, what we have done is tried our best to kill the golden
goose i.e. cricket itself. And everyone concerned with cricket has played
a port in it. The cynicism built has been great. We have forgotten that
the game itself is bigger than the ‘stars it produces. Look how soon the
younger crop has filled the slot in India’s case. But coming back to the
controversy, what it has done is that it has driven the sponsors away.
Today no one wants to be associated with the game itself. Infact,
of late, one has seen a trend, where players all around the world treated
guilty until proved innocent, which should be the other way round. This is
a dangerous trend in itself and it will make the youngster wary of the
game of cricket, as they would fear for their clean image being sullied by
some accusing fingers. So the thing that should be addressed is that the
accusers should not be let off lightly unless they come up with hard
evidences. Why waste so much of public money on futile investigation like
the one against Kapil Dev. But the tragedy in his case is that people are
still pointing fingers at him. Now what do we do if such people (like the
former Mumbai officer of the Income Tax, Desh Band Gupta) do what they
have done. Stop
all these dramas and let the gentleman’s game move on. Pay the players
well and please let us all enjoy the game we all love.
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