There was one topic of conversation in the VIP lounge of Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on April 9, 2000, as players and commentators assembled for flights to their scattered destinations following the Asia XI v World XI fund-raising match.
Two days before, the news broke that, based on taped telephone conversations with an illegal bookmaker, four international cricketers had been charged by the Delhi police with “cheating, fraud and criminal conspiracy relating to match-fixing and betting.”
To most, it was not especially surprising in itself for it had long since been known, if not conclusively proven, that such problems were rife in India where gambling is illegal.
I.S.Bindra, a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), claimed at the time that “virtually every game in international cricket is fixed.”
What came as a shock was that the players involved were not Indian or Pakistani, as racial stereotyping had for long indicated, but South African – and that, among them, was the respected captain Hansie Cronje, a staunch, self-proclaimed Christian.
The initial, official South African reaction was predicable; “completely without foundation” said the board’s chief executive Ali Bacher, “spurious” fumed board president Percy Sonn.
The general feeling in the Dhaka airport lounge was similar. Cronje? Not likely. It was surely nothing more than a stitch-up by the Indian police.
My own misgivings were prompted by the take on the issue by Lance Klusener, the South African all-rounder who had played under Cronje for most of his career. “Just let’s wait and see,” he said, almost inaudibly.
We didn’t have long to wait.
The various dragnets quickly led to humiliating life bans for Cronje and other former captains, Mohammed Azharuddin of India and Salim Malik of Pakistan. A host of other players were implicated on somewhat lesser charges.
When Malik was banned in June, 2000, through an investigative report by the Pakistani Justice Mohammed Qayyum, the president of the Pakistan Cricket Board, General Zia Tauqir, said: “We have done everything that is expected of us. Match-fixing is a closed shop.”
It is said that the derisive laughter of bookmakers who arrange such things could be heard all over the sub-continent. It has been anything but “a closed shop”.
In spite of the setting up, at great expense, of an Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) by the International Cricket Council, and sting operations by investigative journalists that have nabbed some cheaters, it continues, refined more recently into spot-fixing (betting on specific plays within a match, such as no-balls and particular overs, rather than the match itself).
It continues to prove the truth of what Kerry Packer told the Australian Cricket Board in his quest for television rights 35 years ago – “every man has his price.”
This time it involves the high-profile, Indian Premier League (IPL).
Three players from the Rajasthan Royals franchise are facing basically the same charge sheet placed before Cronje by the same Delhi police. All, as Cronje and others to follow have done, plead innocence. We must, in the words of Lance Klusener, “wait and see”.
The waters have been made murkier by further charges against Gurunath Meiyappan, manager of the Chennai Super Kings franchise. He is the son-in-law of BCCI president N Srinivasan who is managing director of India Cements, the Super Kings owner.
Shekar Gupta, editor of the Indian Express, claims that the latest controversy has “put the credibility of the very league in doubt.
“This time, the BCCI cannot blame a mere individual and hang him,” he writes.
“Nor can it rely on the old cynical and lazy notion that cash will solve all problems. It has to clean up not just the IPL, but itself, make a promise of transparency and offer itself voluntarily to some kind of an impartial, outside oversight.”
But it concerns more than just the IPL. It is the game everywhere. The forthcoming Caribbean Premier League has been forewarned.
The question is what more can be done to thwart it. As long as greed remains a human frailty, the answer is not much more than vigilance and life bans for those, who like Cronje, Malik, Azharuddin and, the latest, Pakistan captain Salman Butt.
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THE contrasts between the worrying future of West Indies batting and the present encouraging fast bowling stocks were provided last week.
The ‘A’ team’s upcoming home series against Sri Lanka ‘A’ is where those of the coming generation should be gaining their first grounding against international opposition.
Shannon Gabriel, Sheldon Cottrell and Miguel Cummins, three quick bowlers in their early or mid-twenties, are in the 13 for the two four-day matches, now virtual Tests given the West Indies Cricket Board’s slapdash swap of the real thing against Sri Lanka and Pakistan for the abbreviated formats.
Ronsford Beaton, the genuinely fast, 20-year-old Guyanese, and outswinger Marlon Richards, the 24-year old newcomer from Trinidad & Tobago, are others to have come into the selectors’ discussions. They are likely to get a game in the one-dayers that follow.
In comparison, there is not one fresh, young batsman in the squad.
The opener Kraigg Brathwaite, the youngest at 20, has already had nine Tests and was in the ‘A’ team against the Indians last year.
The left-handers Jonathan Carter and Leon Johnson are the only ones without Test experience; Carter has been in ‘A’ team series since 2010, against Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Johnson, a former West Indies Under-19 captain, against England, Bangladesh and India.
Carter only scored his maiden hundred in his 33rd first-class match last season (118 out of 212 on a difficult pitch against the Windwards in the four-day semi-final). Johnson is yet to get one after 40 matches. Carter averages 31.34, Johnson 27.31.
The other batsmen are not exactly in the flush of youth. All have been around a long time and all have Test experience – Kirk Edwards (aged 28, with nine Tests), Narsingh Deonarine (29, with 14 Tests) and Asad Fudadin (27, with three Tests).
The panel could not come up with a recognized opener among the seven first-class teams, unless they had gone back to Lendl Simmons (28, with eight Tests, average 17.37). Presumably, Fudadin is to go in first with Brathwaite.
Nkrumah Bonner, the 23-year-old Jamaican, and Kyle Corbin, 22, the CCC captain, appeared against India ‘A’ in 2012 but feature no longer after dismal returns in the 2013 seasons (Bonner averaged 10.66, Corbin 21.91).
Perhaps there could have been a bit more daring in the choices; another chance for Adrian Barath, Corbin or Bonner and the inclusion of a batsman from recent under-19 teams such as the Jamaican, Jermaine Blackwood.
But statistics seldom lie and they determined the selection.
In the meantime, we can only enviously observe how batsmen of other ‘A’ teams in recent series against the West Indies have progressed to become Test regulars.
England’s Joe Root scored his maiden hundred against New Zealand yesterday. India’s Cheteshwar Pujara, the ‘A’ team captain in the Caribbean last year, already has a double and three single Test hundreds, and Shikar Dhawan, the ‘A’ team opener of 2012 who, against Australia in March, rushed to the fastest hundred by any player on debut.
