Footloose

Cricket faces its biggest test, much in the same vein as International athletics did when a string of its top stars were found guilty of having used banned substances; or when some of the `revered’ men at theInternational Olympic Committee were found guilty of improprieties while awarding some cities the lucrative Olympic Games.

The latest episode is also a call to the ICC to clean its stables for no longer is this malaise limited to certain pockets of the cricketing world or to a few `rotten apples’. It runs far too deep to be dismissed casually.

Cricket’s image in recent years has been taking a beating: Bookies offering journalists money to act as go-betweens; journalists supplying information to bookies; cricketers allegedly in league with bookies; rumours of disclosures of huge amounts of unaccounted wealth by some cricketers under the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme last year. During every cricket season, papers have been carrying some small snippets of some allegedbookies, armed with a battery of cellphones and landlines, being arrested. Often they have been caught with large amounts of cash, which have supposedly been taken as bets.

In the past individual Boards, like the Indian and Pakistani and even Australians, have glossed over incidents. The Indians and the Pakistani Boards claimed they could not find concrete evidence, but worse, the Australians sought to cover up the misdemeanours of their players. And now comes this incident about the South Africans.

The BCCI did have an inquiry after Manoj Prabhakar’s allegations, but it revealed nothing. The report was not even made public and the case was closed in manner of speaking. The ICC offered some lip service, but chose not to interfere and treated it as an internal matter.

Now that it can safely be said that this is no longer a Gentleman’s Game, the ICC has little choice but to ask various Boards to re-open inquiries.

In the past, there have been rumours, in cricket circles, of the South African `choke’ in crucial games as engineered. That happened in the Titan Cup final once in late 1996 when while seeming to be on a roll, they lost to India in Mumbai. Ironically, the same match has been shown in some films produced to promote the ICC Week. Thus far it was seen only a sporting failure, but after today it will be seen in a different light.

There has also been talk of Indian businessmen from South Africa and Dubai being close to cricketers across the globe. Nothing wrong there, for cricketers, no matter from which country, are hugely popular in and with Indians. Many foreign players have modelled for Indian products and on their latest tour — the one which has raised dust — the South Africans modelled for a suiting company.

It is no secret that world cricket is fuelled by Indian money, Indian sponsors, Indian TV audience and channels. Little wonder then that in each allegation and episode thus far, it has always been an Indian bookie or agent. Whether be it of somebody offering money to Shane Warne or Mark Waugh or Chris Lewis or Hansie Cronje and his teammates.

Indications are that it is only a matter of time before some Indian names, that of players, will tumble out of the cupboard. But before that the Indian Board, as well as the ICC, which currently has an Indian chief — ironically the next in line is a South African representative, probably Ali Bacher — has to take a serious view of what’s happening in their game. Or it runs the risk of being clubbed alongside WWF wrestling.

V Krishnaswamy can contacted at swamy@ndf.vsnl.net.in