Pakistan scandal throws focus on India

 Young Indian cricketers were on Tuesday warned of the perils of corruption following the illicit gambling allegations levelled against the Pakistani team in England.
Former India captain Anil Kumble, asked if he feared players from his own country could in future be hauled up, said: "Of course I am worried. "These days youngsters who have not even played for India have agents," Kumble, one of the game's elder statesmen in India, said.
A British tabloid claimed over the weekend that a middleman gave undercover reporters exact details of no-balls to be bowled by Pakistani seamers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif during the Lord's Test against England.
The News of the World said it had paid the middleman, Mazhar Majeed, 150,000 pounds (230,000 dollars) for information on the practice of spot-fixing, which is widespread in illegal South Asian betting circles.
Majeed, who claimed to be an agent for several Pakistani cricketers, told the newspaper he worked for an "Indian party". "They pay me for information," Majeed was recorded as saying.
The identity of the "Indian party" is being probed by Scotland Yard investigators. Many observers point to India's huge influence over the International Cricket Council (ICC), which has been attacked by critics for failing to clean up the game.
India, cricket's financial powerhouse, accounts for nearly 70 percent of the game's global revenues and is regarded as the hotbed for betting syndicates and match-fixers.
Matthew Engel, a former Wisden editor, on Tuesday described the ICC as "a notoriously dysfunctional organisation, controlled by Indian interests and obsessed with political and financial manoeuvring".
The shady world of Indian bookmakers came to light in a match-fixing scandal in 2000 that led to life bans for Test captains Hansie Cronje (South Africa), Mohammad Azharuddin (India) and Salim Malik (Pakistan).
The scandal broke when New Delhi police, working on an unrelated extortion case, tapped a conversation between Cronje and an alleged bookie. India's federal Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the 2000 scandal, alluded to the underworld's links with cricket in its report.
"During the inquiry," the CBI report said, "it was learnt that the lure of easy money has gradually attracted the underworld into this racket". Cronje, who accepted having links with bookmakers but denied he was involved in match-fixing, was killed in a mysterious plane crash near Cape Town in 2002.
Betting on sports is illegal in India except at horse races, but major betting syndicates have been in operation for many years taking advantage of the country's lax gambling laws.
The Hindustan Times on Tuesday quoted police as saying that bookies, when caught, get away with a paltry fine of 200 rupees (less than five dollars).
"First it is a bailable offence, second, electronic evidence is not admissible in court," the newspaper quoted a police officer involved in anti-gambling investigations as saying.
"We have to keep a check on the activities of these bookies but they take advantage of the law. Since international markets are also involved, we cannot do much."
The lucrative Indian Premier League, where players from around the world earn millions of dollars in the game's crowd-friendly Twenty20 format, was a key target for the sport's anti-corruption watchdog.
But the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit gave a clean slate to the event's third edition this year after being kept away by organisers for the first two years.

Sehwag Did Get His Century!

So it is now open season on Suraj Randiv, who bowled the no-ball that ‘denied’ Virender Sehwag a century he truly deserved (In contrast to those knocks where he blazes away from ball one, on this particular occasion Sehwag absorbed the loss of his colleagues at the other end, battled with the demons of the pitch and atmosphere, revealed an unsuspected ability to do the grind, and fulfilled the fantasies of millions of Indian fans who, ever since the swashbuckler made his debut, have lusted after the possibility that one day, he will bat through an innings). It is also open season on Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan captain, who if the transcription of words picked up from the stump mike is to believed, reminded Randiv, just as he prepared to bowl the decisive ball, that “If he hits it, he gets the run”.


Digression: Consider Randiv’s brains, or lack thereof. If Kumar was in fact instructing his bowler, was that instruction to bowl a no-ball? Ridiculous – a batsman can and, in this instance did, hit a no-ball. A more canny bowler would have bowled a wide – because it is the wide that, by definition, you cannot hit.


But back to cases: So everyone, from the Sri Lankan cricket board to sundry Indian stars of yesteryear, have been banging on about the Lankans’ lack of sportsmanship (If there is any irony in Mohammad Azharuddin, who was banned from international cricket for match-fixing and related activities, talking of the spirit of the sportsman, ignore it, please – it is also the silly season).


What strikes us is how the public discourse, and wall to wall ‘exclusive’ coverage on television channels, misses the point: Sehwag was denied his century not by the Kumar-Suraj combine, but by scorers and umpires who were clearly asleep and/or ignorant of rules that, incidentally, have been framed so ambiguously as to convert a fairly simple proposition into a complicated situation.


Here is what happened, pure and simple: Randiv bowled. The umpire called ‘no-ball’. There is a reason the umpire calls it as soon as a bowler bowls one – it is to let the batsman know that there are no real penalties attached to having a go. A batsman, on hearing that call, knows he can have a swing without running the risk of being bowled, caught, declared LBW.


So Randiv bowled. The umpire called. Sehwag had a swing, and despatched the ball over the ropes.


That logically is seven runs added to the total – one to the team total as an extra, the other six to Sehwag, the batsman who was quick to seize on the opportunity. Simple.


This is where the idiocy of umpires and the ambiguity of the rule book come in: How could the game be over as soon as Randiv over-stepped? A ball, to be deemed bowled, has to be delivered; the batsman has to play/miss it; in the case of the former the ball has to be retrieved while the batsman runs, or not…there is no provision in cricket for declaring a result, and ending a match, at some intermediate stage of this process.


Thus, for umpires to declare that the game was over as soon as Randiv overstepped is plain folly. To understand this, consider a hypothetical situation: Randiv bowls. It is a no-ball. Sehwag decides the game is over, lets the ball go and walks off. Sangakkara collects and whips off the bails.


Is the batsman out? Of course he is. The extra run cannot be counted until the ball in question is officially dead; in our example Sehwag left his crease while the ball was in play, therefore he is out.


So, if his dismissal off a no ball counts, why were the runs he scored off that no ball not counted to his name?


The question, simplified: How could the umpires, or the scorers, or both, consider the match over before the ball had completed its necessary course?


Read Law 24 (No ball)


Runs resulting from a No ball


The one run penalty for a No ball shall be scored as a No ball extra. If other penalty runs have been awarded to either side, these shall be scored as in Law 42.17 (Penalty runs). Any runs completed by the batsmen or a boundary allowance shall be credited to the striker if the ball has been struck by the bat; otherwise they also shall be scored as No ball extras.


Where is the ambiguity? The law clearly says that any runs completed by the batsman, or a boundary allowance, off a no ball shall be credited to the striker.


Sehwag ‘completed’ a sixer. His score – unless the scorer is a congenital idiot – should have been 105. End of story.


The key is to understand that a game is not declared over midway through a cricketing action – which is the space between a ball being ‘live’ and being ‘dead’. Consider this example: India needs one run to win. Sehwag whacks the ball high in the air. While the ball is in the air, the batsman cross over and complete a run. The ball comes down, and is caught.


Is the game over, simply because the batsmen had crossed while the ball was in the air, and had not yet been caught? No, the verdict in this case would be, the batsman is out, the run doesn’t count. So clearly, runs and results are not declared at some arbitrary point while the ball is live – such a determination happens only after the ball is ‘dead’.


The fallacy appears to be in the thinking that any runs accruing to the batsman and/or side after a result is achieved do not count. That is equally a fallacy. Here is an illustrative example:


India needs to get one run to win. Sehwag drives, and the batsman race across for a single. The ball then goes on to cross the boundary. Do you award Sehwag one run, or four? Clearly, the answer is ‘four’ – despite the fact that the first of those runs won the game.


It is not the intention of this post to ‘excuse’ what Randiv did, or what Sangakkara asked him to do. That action was clearly unsporting, childish, petty. Here was one of the great batsman of the modern era, in challenging conditions, digging deep within himself to play a match-winning innings that was contrary to type. A gracious opposition would have admired, applauded; instead, the Lankans appear to have conspired to score a childish ‘victory’.


Fair enough. What beats us, though, is this: Why is there, amidst all this noise, no attempt to question the outcome declared by the scorers? Why is there no debate on the central question? Where were the umpires, the match referee? And where, incidentally, was the Indian team management that it did not think to question the scorers’ declared result?

For the Love of Dravid

dravid



There are a few men we hate to see fall -  one such man is Rahul Sharad Dravid, ‘The Wall’ of Indian cricket for decades. Many dream to do what Dravid has done with the willow – with which he fought many a battle to bring glory to Indian cricket.
Dravid with his warrior spirit oozed confidence from the very beginning of his career and made an entire generation fall for his sturdy and no-nonsense approach to the game. Dravid may not be a Tendulkar or a Ganguly or may not be as swashbuckling as Sehwag, but he is and will go down as one of the batting greats to have ever graced the game of cricket.
Somewhere in all these years of grind, Dravid never got his due as a player but none can question his loyalty to the team, nor can one ever say that he flinched while facing hostile bowling that has been dished out to him all over the world.
Such is the prize on his wicket that legendary spinner Shane Warne wrote in his memoir:
“The fortress could also describe Rahul. Because once, Dravid was set, you needed the bowling equivalent of a dozen cannon firing all at once to blast him down.”
Statistics say that Dravid after Allan Border faced the maximum numbers of deliveries in Test cricket – this tells us how much Indian cricket is dependent on him.
Year after year, Dravid has been consistently scoring runs and winning matches for India at home and abroad. No other Indian batsman has saved or won more Test matches than Dravid, but he has never received the accolades that he so rightfully deserved. Lack of laurels has never been a deterrent to his motivation; such is his love for cricket that Dravid like a humble servant of the game continues to labour every single day to bring honour to Indian cricket.
After Sachin Tendulkar, he is the only Indian batsman to score more than 10,000 runs in both forms of the game. But Dravid has always been the man behind the curtains and our board too hasn’t been kind to him. From being forced to keep wickets when India missed an all-rounder to being given the captaincy when it had no takers, Dravid has done all that he could do for the country.
It’s bewildering that there was no media hype and fanfare when Dravid went past 11,000 Test runs to become the fourth highest run-getter in Test cricket. Maybe we have failed to see the perfectionist in Dravid or maybe we just have a penchant for imperfection.
Is Dravid destined to play the quintessential role of the supporting hero eternally? He does not seem to have a problem with donning this role as long as the team wins. But I do have a problem with this as a true player like Dravid deserves to be up there with the greats of the game.
Hopefully his lack of runs in the Sri Lankan series doesn’t force the selectors to overlook him for the Australia and New Zealand series.
It’s a pity that from now on we will get to see less and less of a legend called Rahul Dravid.