Breaking the faith - The 'scripted' heroes of IPL and cricket

As a kid brought up in the 90s, I heard of the jargon ‘fixed’ for the first time when Delhi Police charged South African skipper Hansie Cronje with fixing allegations in the series against India. That year, 2000 was a turbulent one for cricket from there on. Several cycles fell in the cycle stand. Peter Strydom, Nicky Boje, Herschelle Gibbs, Ajay Jadeja, Manoj Prabhakar, Mohammad Azharrudin and Nayan Mongia – the allegations spread across the cricketing world.

That was, as far as I remember, the first time I realised that the live action can be ‘scripted’ too. It was hard to accept that there was something beyond the incentive of having a chance to represent your nation at the highest level. Few respected names had been tainted and Indian cricket had been put to shame. Some allegations were taken back but some stayed. But as they say, there is no smoke without fire. Something sinister had to be there. And if it still existed, it was bound to return and haunt.

For some good years, it didn’t. The storm had abated and the cricketing world moved on. In 2008, Marlon Samuels was alleged but not proved guilty of fixing. It made a little buzz, but not big waves. Then it came to the fore in 2010, with shaming revelations. Two young and talented Pakistan pacers and their promising skipper-opener accepted their hands being fouled in mucky waters of spot-fixing. It was unbelievable and a big loss for cricket. Asif and Aamir could have made a lot more the way their cricket careers were heading. However, money doesn’t attract the needy, but the greedy.

When incidents like these come to the spotlight, there is a loss of credibility and respect. We start wondering which of those thrilling moments or the unusual moments were cooked up even before the match started. It is like a child being told one day that Santa Clause is a thing of fiction and he starts thinking where did all those gifts come from.

It is more difficult to digest when your heroes are life-idols like Lance Armstrong, who fought cancer to win seven Tour De France titles! When something that dramatic happens next time, something that extraordinary, will we start to think of it as all scripted?

But wait, not just the extraordinary is under suspicion now, but also the ordinary after the IPL trio allegations.

How unusual is it to tuck a towel into your lower? And getting beaten up for 13 runs in second over after a good first over? It might have seemed so typical of Sreesanth then. But it seems something completely different now in hindsight.

The solution lies neither in making betting legal nor in banning IPL. For once, assume that betting becomes legal. It might add up to taxes in government lockers but it might open up a new market of betting. It might become a precedent for the betting gangs. And if IPL is banned, it is like shutting down a school just because a few students turned out to be mischievous.

It is confusing and disheartening. The viewers have no choice but to believe in their heroes if they do something spectacular. No player is free from suspicion, because the seed of doubt has been sown. But I just hope that more heroes don’t take this shameful route. For we may reach a point where all credibility is lost; when we refuse to believe the truth because of all the lies that we have been told.

This gentleman’s game would cease to exist without its gentlemen.