The Great Fix!

The news was not expected, to me at least. It was impossible to argue, in spite of lack of concrete evidence, that IPL is not rigged. It turned out to be worse than I thought. My feeling was that the tournament was fixed from the top i.e. the administration is fixing the results to suit them. And though I think that still is the case (Chennai’s team is owned by chief of BCCI, how fucked up that conflict of interest has to be!), it has emerged that even players were fixing the games. I do not think the trio currently in bind are the only ones. Two of the players are virtually unknown to have any effect on the results on sustained basis. The fixing goes down deeper, the so called super-stars have to be involved.

It is a batsman’s game. The fixing plan, as per Delhi Police, was bowlers will leak out pre-determined number of runs in a particular over. There was an elaborate system to signal bookies about the players where bowlers were going to ‘take a dive’. But if batsman refuses to hit the bowl, even if the delivery is mother of all lose delivery then what? Also, what if batsman is dumb enough to get out or mishit and gets caught? Also, if two of the bowlers in question were at best fringe players for their respective state teams. If they had this kind of precision to leak the runs then they would be fucking playing for India by now. The only way this plan would work is if batsman was also part of the fix. The bowler will throw a dumb delivery and batsman, knowing this, will hit for the boundary.

Can anyone please ask these questions to the cops? Oh right, the media and the press already work for BCCI and IPL, they will summarily bury this issue in a week or so.  

Even if these bowlers had not got caught, the signs of IPL being fixed are all over the place. The teams are structured haphazardly; the ownerships are shrouded in mystery and the source of funding is murky. If that wasn’t enough then BCCI administration was transitioning into a political organization headed by one of the most corrupt politician in the country. Do you think he really gave a shit about Cricket? He saw the opportunity to siphon money and he jumped in with his two feet. His cotire is who’s who of power and money and IPL was their call to duty.

The prices of teams were beyond wildest imagination. To give readers some perspective – NBA's Boston Celtics was sold to new owners in 2001 for around $340 Million. The team has highest number of championships in the history of NBA; they were the pioneers of employing black players and hiring a black coach. They won unprecedented 9 championships in a row, the feat hasn’t been accomplished again. They, in short, defined Basketball and NBA. On the other hand, Pune’s IPL sold for the same price with virtually no history in IPL and no solid future plan. And, I am discounting the fact that Boston is in US where $ is the currency while Pune is in India where Rs. Is the currency and $1 is equivalent to Rs.55 that means the you have to multiply $340 by  55 to get the valuation of team in Rupee.

Okay…I will stop here….what I meant to say is this shit is fucked up!

I have already ranted about how IPL is ruining Indian cricket. It was befuddling to see players like Sehwag and Gambhir throw away their privilege of playing for India, just so that they could earn more money playing in IPL. By the way, playing for India does earn them millions of dollars (again multiply it by 55 to get their real income in Rupee!) I argued that lure of money shouldn’t be a reason for them to act like this and I also said that this precedent will kill Cricket. I didn’t realize that these players have sold their soul for money.

To be honest all of this doesn’t matter as long as public is flocking to watch the games and flock they will! If we don’t demand honesty then we will only get crooks, if we don’t demand commitment then we will only get money mongers. We get what we deserve, nothing more nothing less!