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Wednesday December 31, 1969

Cricket - Match fixing

By Bhupen Maurya

Most of the indian cricket fans are agog at current

match fixing allegation against Indian star player Kapil Dev. In fact in beginning when

the South African scandal came out in open very few were believed that similiar case was

possible for indian players too.

Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar says ``there may be an odd rotten

apple but others are clean'' and calls for a time bound and thorough probe into match

fixing allegations, particularly in the case of current Indian players. ``There may be an

odd rotten apple in the pack but others are clean and they deserve the cloud of suspicion

be taken out over their heads,'' Gavaskar tells Star Sports in an interview in Dhaka.

``This kind of innuendo cannot continue. I certainly would like to see a time frame set

for current players, probably before the next season starts in September. Inquiries

regarding former players and administrators can take as long as the authorities want.''

Former Pakistan captain Rahid Latif says that Manoj Prabhakar who has

raked up the match fixing issue, with his allegation against Kapil Dev, is himself ``not

above board.'' In an interview to a website, Latif says: ``If Kapil did approach with him

with an offer, it could be because he (Kapil) knew Prabhakar was himself into the racket.

What I mean is if Prabhakar says Kapil approached him with a match fixing offer or that he

knew other players are involved in it, then he must have also at some time been part of

this racket. An outsider can never tell or know when a team is fixing a match.''

Whatever the case be a seed on suspecion is planted in every cricket

fans back of mind. Now whenever I see a player having a bad day I will suspect is he

really having bad day or delibrately doing something as there is big money involved in it.

Now looking at root cause of this problem I see that it could be easily

elevated if players were rewarded more than currently they are. Not only that if we follow

more commercial approach like American Basketball Association of Footbal leages framework

it will be much easier to promote the game in and also rake more revenue from it. Do you

wonder why we need to have only one good team in 1 Billiaon strong India. Why don't we

play world championship cricket with 25 teams from India, few from pakistan, and so on.

Not only we will give chance to more of budding cricketers we will have no national

rivalary started when we play Pakistan or so on.