NEW DELHI, APRIL 20: Finally the world knows cricket Board's best kept secret: The Chandrachud report. When in 1997, we were told that the former Chief Justice of India had found that matchfixing does not and cannot exist in Indian cricket, there were many takers for this pronouncement.Three years later, after Hansie Cronje admitted to his guilt, and the world over cricketers and officials are coming out with stories of bribes having been offered to ``fix'' a game, Chandrachud's conclusion appears amusing, to say the least.In page after page, the judge records former and present cricketers and officials parroting the same lines: No match can be fixed and no Indian players can be bribed. The judge believes them. He only does not believe those few - among them most of the journalists who deposed before him - ``because there is no proof of what they had to say.'' By which powers of deduction he arrived at this conclusion one is not clear.Does a probe mean calling people and after listening to what they have to say arriving at a conclusion? If that is the procedure, an inquiry should follow into whether Chandrachud has done justice to the probe.Till the report was made public today - bits and pieces have appeared in the media - one wondered what on earth could it contain to make the Board keep it under wraps. Perhaps, one cursory reading of it makes the reason clear: The probe is nothing but an amateurish attempt to arrive at the truth.Today there is a need to clear the sheets of suspicion and tons of allegations under the weight of which the world and Indian cricket has almost collapsed and not distract and mislead the public by providing them with ``perceptive'' insights into Manoj Prabhakar's character.Sample this: ``Manoj lost his equipose because firstly, to quote his own words, he was thrown out of the Indian team.That unhinged him because, having been a hero of the crowds for quite some years, he was relegated into oblivion. From the admiring eyes of countless fans to a dark room is a fall too big to bear even for the most philosophical. He then tried to open a new leaf in his life by contesting an election to the Parliament. He rushed in where angels fear to tread and lost his wicket like a tailender. That was the last straw which broke a brave back.''So, according to Mr Chandrachud, this was the reason why Prabhakar made his allegations. Believe it or not, the problem is yours. How can the judge be wrong!
