Click to play videoWith the ghost of match-fixing back to haunt the cricketing fraternity, the game’s hall of shame might have to make room for one more international player, the West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels.
Nagpur Police claim that Samuels gave out information to suspected bookie Mukesh Kochar on the batting and bowling line-ups of his team prior to the Nagpur One-Dayer that was held on January 21.
However, Samuels has rubbished the claims but according to the police, phone calls were made to Kochhar from Room 206 of Hotel Pride. And that is the room where Samuels was staying.
The police, however, added that there is no evidence about any financial dealings taking place.
The question that was the topic of discussion on the show Face The Nation was: Are international cricket matches still fixed?
On the panel of experts to lead the discussion were Editor-in-Chief of Cobrapost.com, Aniruddha Bahal, BCCI Secy Niranjan Shah and former Pakistani pace ace Aaqib Javed.
Samuels on the back foot
Twenty-four hours after the sensational revelations emerged from Nagpur about contact between Samuels and Kochar, the suspected bookie says that the conversation between the two was friendly and had nothing to do with the match.
“I have known Marlon Samuels for a long time. He is like a son to me. He is a dear friend and I love him as a cricketer. I am not a bookie and I have never been involved in any scam. I was just advising him to play well,” said Kochar.
Disagreeing with Kochar, Bahal, who had broken the match-fixing story in India a few years ago, said that the bookie’s defence was “shaky”.
“Kochar was arrested by the Mumbai Police in 2000 in connection with such crimes. For a cricketer to be even talking to a person who has been charged as a bookie is suspicious. So, these are not innocuous conversations,” explained Bahal.
But shouldn’t Samuels be given the benefit of doubt because at the end of the day he might have had a friendly conversation with Kochar?
“It is a little doubtful because one should look at the context of it all. The whole match-fixing controversy broke out in 1997 and 1998. In the Shane Warne and Mark Waugh incident they took money only to talk about the weather. Thereafter, there was the Hansie Cronje incident in 2000. So, these conversations are not innocuous,” said Bahal.
Bahal added that Samuels should have “remembered that he is an international player.
The match-fixing issue is secondary, the fact that he violated the code of conduct by discussing the team’s position with an outsider is wrong. These are vital information for a bookie to get hold of the match.”
Role of BCCI
Is it possible for the BCCI to be taking any action in this matter?
Niranjan Shah said that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) “cannot take any action.”
Shah explained, “Our job is to give whatever information the police has given to the ICC. This is a matter between the police and the ICC.”
Given the fact that the sub-continent has had such an embarrassing history of match- fixing, the BCCI should have a strict code of conduct for international teams visiting India. But are there any guidelines that cricket’s Indian governing body offers to the international teams?
Smartly maneuvering the question, Shah said, “ICC does have guidelines and anti-corruption norms are there. If this is a case of match-fixing then ICC will take cognizance of the matter.”
Meanwhile, the West Indian Cricket Board said that they haven’t received any official intimation either from the BCCI or the ICC regarding the matter.
But Shah indicated that BCCI’s job is to “send the information to ICC and then they would send it to the West Indian Cricket Board.”
The conspiracy theory
Samuels is accused of passing information to an alleged bookie but can this construe into a case of match-fixing?
Akib Javed agreed as he explained, “One thing that the bookie always wants is the inside story of the team. The same thing happened with Hansie Cronje. But I think ICC is doing a good job in curbing all this.”
Javed recollected how during his hey days there were clouds of suspicion on some of the members of his team also like Wasim Akram and Salim Malik. All kinds of questions were asked and it led to a strange atmosphere in the dressing room.
“Such allegations are like bribery. They can never be proved 100 per cent. Yes, the atmosphere does become odd in the dressing room as players are no more comfortable with each other,” said Javed.
From Cronje to Shane Warne and to Salim Mallik, top cricketers from around the world have been charged with passing on information or fixing matches at various stages of their career. Despite the fact that the money involved in the game is so huge, why do these things happen? Is there some kind of an external pressure that operates on players?
“It was evident during the CBI enquiry of match-fixing that the way they (bookies) approach you is very soft initially like ‘tell us about the weather and who all will be playing.’ They ask simple questions like who has suffered an injury and what are the captain’s views,” explained Bahal.
Bahal further explained that the bookies begin with “soft” questions to befriend a cricketer but soon get on to asking bigger favours.
“These are comfort questions to get a player on line or basically to get him talking. It is like throwing little chunks at him and if he bites the bait then the job is done. Then the bookie goes on to the harder issues like doing favours for a certain amount of money. This is how it happened with Hansie Cronje,” said Bahal.
Whether it is about Hansie Cronje, Shane Warne or Marlon Samuels, increasingly there is an Indian connection, too, to these cases. Is it that India or the sub-continent is emerging as a hub of betting and fixing cricket matches?
“The bulk of the money, whether it is the endorsements or the sponsorship, 70 per cent of the ICC’s money comes from India. The illegal money and betting network exists in the sub-continent, which is basically fed by Karachi and Dubai. One has not been able to dismantle this structure no matter how many investigations have been done. One keeps hearing about bookies getting arrested after the matches but the network is as strong as ever,” said Bahal.
As a passionate follower of the game, Bahal concluded by saying that it is still not time to get cynical and the gentleman’s game has not been discredited beyond redemption. “The point is that one has to be eternally vigilant. Policing has to be more imaginative and strict. But getting cynical is not the right approach,” he said.
Final SMS poll results: Are international cricket matches still fixed?
Yes: 89 per cent
No: 11 per cent
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