You bet!

By Ajay Naidu

Much like the apple from the ‘Garden of Eden’, the person, who symbolised the very spirit of the gentlemen’s game, has his neck deep into the ‘cancer’ that betting and ‘match-fixing’ have now become. Nothing bites deeper into the psyche that the man whom cricket prided itself on, has in fact turned out to be its biggest enemy in over a 100 years of its privileged existence.

Hansie Cronje, a towering personality, an inspiring leader, a fiercely proud competitor and most of all a cricketer everyone swore by, opened the ‘can of worms’ on what definitely is cricket’s biggest-ever scandal to date. In doing so, this man, held in high esteem, has dealt a sledge-hammer blow to the game. And this is definitely going to have far reaching effects even as the years keep rolling.

Even a week after Cronje was led to accept his ‘crime’, the sheer totality of the whole episode leaves us numb. Oh! How could this man do this? How could he possibly cheat on a whole nation of adoring fans? How could he ever dare to play with the gamut of emotions millions of his countrymen go through watching the ‘men in the green’ compete?

And to think that all that was a farce, a drama that was being enacted with Cronje playing the lead role. In fact, there are reasons to believe that he has been doing so for some time now, and that possibly makes him a candidate for an Oscar of dubious distinction!

Frankly, let us not allow emotions to cloud logic, for here is a man who has conspired against the very game that has given him name, fame and money. Watching Cronje do an about turn in recent days, one got to see the face of a businessman who was possibly masquerading as a cricketer of great repute.

No sooner had the Delhi police came up with the disclosures that left the cricketing world stunned in disbelief, Cronje himself got ready for the ‘great escape’. “I am stunned,” he told the world media at a news conference. “The allegations are completely without substance. I have been privileged to play for South Africa since 1992 and I want to ensure every South African that I have made a hundred percent effort to win every match I have played. It has been an honour to play for South Africa and I would never do anything to let my country down.”

These words were aimed not just to steer clear of trouble but also to stir the plethora of emotions that united all and sundry into condenming the allegations asa piece of ‘rubbish’. What was shocking, however, was even the Indians jumped to the conclusion that the allegations were baseless. Perhaps that was more due to the respect Cronje had come to command as he championed the case of South Africa ever since its comeback to international fame.

Yet, it took less than 24 hours for Mr. Cronje to go back on his own words. “I want to make a confession that I have been dishonest,” he told Dr. Ali Bacher, Managing Director of the United Cricket Board of SOuth Africa. When Dr. Bacher noted that “we have been shattered and deceived”, he may ahve been echoeing the sentiments of millions of fans who ought to have felt the same way. Yesterday’s hero was a fallen man today. And history will always remember Hansie Cronje as the first big casualty of the betting and match-fixing scandals that haver come to hit international cricket in recent years.

Indeed this is possibly, equivalent, if not a bigger scandal than the Ben Johnson doping scandal in the 1987 Seoul Olympics, or for that matter Diego Maradona taking drugs in the World Cup. And this man shall now live to regret his love for the lucre even as his near and dear ones face the brunt of attack from all over the world.

There are several questions that beg an answer. First and foremost, why did he do an about turn in less than 24 hours. Was it because he believed that the transcript in Africaan language with the Delhi police would definitely prove how deep his involvement has been.

There are reasons however to believe that Hansie Cronje was just one of the key players of the whole episode. There ought to be several others, for such a script cannot be handled by just one man, even if he happens to be a captain. It may be that Cronje is trying his best to make sure that the ‘can of worms’ do not throw out more names. Already  Cronje’s involvement in the triangular series at home involving South Africa, England and Zimbabwe, gives us enough reason to make out that by now he must have been an old hand at the ‘game’. And the authorities may also do well to extend their probe to the World Cup games as well. For it was South Africa’s defeat against Zimbabwe that changed the whole equation for so many teams in the World Cup.

Somehow, those who travel with ‘cricketing circus’ always seem to have an advance information. Like In Sharjah, you can sense an upset on the dayof the match. From personal experience, one can vouch for the fact that on the day of the Titan Cup series final between India and South Africa in Bombay in 1994, everybody at the stadium was talking about an Indian victory even though SOuth Africa hadn’t lost a single game in the tournament. Then again, there was this journalist in the press box who announced that India would not get the 120 runs recquired for victory against the West Indies! Similarly, Pakistan’s loss to Bangladesh in the World Cup was a surprising as the odds changing from 33 to 1 to 24 to 1.  Yet, some of the Pakistani journalists made tons of money and threw a grand treat in the evening.

Surely, there must be something to it. There is definitely no smoke without fire and here the International Cricket Conference has to take a major share of the blame. It is precisely because ICC is a toothless body that nothing has been done to curb betting and match-fixing. As for the Board of Control for Cricket in India, it is too busy counting the green bags after every series. Besides, when there was a case big enough to deal firmly with, BCCI bosses were happy to see the Chandrachud report gathering dust. It has directly put on line that great man’s credibility. In much the same way, cricketers in Pakistan too have got away lightly despite a similar enquiry being ordered. One doubts whether the report of the fact-finding committee will ever come to light.

It is more due to shame rather than anything else that the ICC and the BCCI have announced independentant inquiries. And it is against this background that every right-minded citizen and cricket fans should hail the achievement of the Dehli police. For once, someone has been found guilty with enough evidence to prove his involvement.

In recent years, it has been the utter negligence shown by the Board and by the ICC that the players with a feel for the green bags started gaining in confidence. Now, they knew, that they could always get away with it since it was very difficult to prove betting and match-fixing.

A few months back, a former Indian captain declared no less than 16 crores under the VDS Scheme in Bhopal. Yet, no one was surprised. Not even the police. How could anyone amass that kind of money simply by playing cricket where till just a few years back a player got just 10, 000 per Test. Given the popularity cricket enjoys in the sub-continent, all the money that keeps cricket and cricketers thriving is in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It is hardly surprising then that bookies have targeted these countries to rake in the mullah.

Also it’s very common to find lots of ‘Mamus’ as they call it whenever a team goes abroad on a tour. These ‘mamus’ are persons who supply the team and the media with delicious Indian food. Their hospitality extends, at times, to providing costly gifts to all the ‘guests’. Little wonder then that the Indians and the Pakistanis have lots of ‘businessmen’ friends in Dubai, England, South Africa and even Australia.

Come to think of it, Hansie Cronje’s link in SOuth Africa is a businessman of Indian origin--Hameed ‘Banjo’ Cassim. He is the man who is said to have paid money to his wife. Now, this person have been playing a perfect host to the entire Indian team. Not just that he’s the person who gifted a BMW to Kapil Dev on India’s historic tour of SOuth Africa. He also has cemented relations with Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharuddin and several Indian stars.

The players take shield behind the fact that they come across so many people and they just take them at their face value. But somewhere down the line, the hospitality extended as a courtsey extends much beyond the established norms. And that’s where the needle of suspicision points towards our fancied cricketers.

Why is it that venues like Singapore and Sharjah always produce topsy turvy results? Why is that rumours of match-fixing or betting gain momentum whenever a tournament is played there? IF one were to ask a member of the ‘cricketing circus’ he would simply smile and say, “This has been going on for years.”

If cricket in these parts is spoken of in those terms, ICC and BCCI have to take the entire blame. They have been the silent spectators sitting on the fences even as the lead characters in the match-fixing drama play according to the script given to them either from London, or from Mumbai or even from Dubai or Karachi.

The other day Mr. N. K. P. Salve, a member of the ICC’s  committee dealing with match-fixing suggested that the Chandrachud report be made public. However, it is unlikely that the people would ever come to know of the contents.

Till such time, players like Mohd. Azharuddin, Ajay JAdeja, Manoj Prabhakar, Nayan Mongia, Navjot Sidhu. Venkatapathy Raju and others will continue to live under a shadow of doubt. OR it may well be that players who are tainted and have traded their patriotism for a few green bags will continue their unholy alliance with bookies sitting in London or Dubai.

Then again, the way in which the Board Secretary Mr. J. Y. Lele has been conducting himself, he deserves, as Ian Chappell would say, ‘a kick on the back side’. He dares to say that all allegations against the South Africans were ‘rubbish’. If that ifs the faith an important Board functionary has on Delhi police, how can a commoner expect not to get carried away .

The fact of the matter is that more names are likely to come out as the police translate the script in Afrikaan. Whether ICC or the BCCI can muster enough strength to take the guilty to task will also determine whether the ‘cancer’ can be checked lest it destroys the game completely!

Hansie Cronje’s involvement no doubt has shocked every cricket fan. At the same time, people can now relate the involvement of superstars with fantastic records to have a finger in the betting pie. All indications are that Hansie Cronje is just one name in a long list of players who are guilty of deceiving millions of adoring and unsuspecting fans!