Spot-fixing redux

Thanks to those who took time off to read, share, and comment on the earlier post. The discussions in the comments section were thought-provoking.

As a continuation of that piece, I thought I needed to outline some of the narratives that have dominated the current discourse. Here I take up five such threads and offer my thoughts. As always, feel free to tear them to shreds.

The Every-Cricketer-Knows-The-Dangers-Of-Fixing argument

The argument goes: even after the 2000 match-fixing episode, even after Asif and Amir, how can a cricketer still try and dabble in these shady deals?

To that I say: every smoker knows the dangers of lung cancer, every drinker knows the importance of his liver. Yet there are thousands of people smoking and drinking every day, even as thousands more die for the same reason.

Here’s the deal: a lot of these cricketers are snared early. It happens at the junior levels (not because a lack of knowledge but because, like many a smoker who tries his first cigarette, they think they’re not going to suffer permanent damage.)

But you can give up smoking and drinking. Turning your back on fixing is probably harder: once you’re ensnared into the world of bookies and the underworld, your life is as good as finished. It’s not about you and your principles any more; it’s about blackmail and death threats. The stakes are too high. And every time you see Azhar, Cronje, Asif and Amir on screen, you can only hope you’re not one of the unlucky ones who gets caught. To say “no” to bookies (once you’re trapped) is not really a straightforward option.

Which makes the BCCI’s role even more vital at the junior levels. They can’t hide behind the ‘every cricketer who picks up a bat or ball knows the danger’ line. They need to pro-actively have a full-fledged nation-wide awareness campaign that’s headed by a cricketer of repute.

The Such-Shadiness-Affects-All-Leagues theory

Sure. There is no league worth its billion-dollar value that is free of such corruption and murkiness. European football is in the middle of a grand investigation into fixing, baseball has grappled with cheats since the early part of the 20^th century, and cycling has, of late, been reduced to a Chemistry Olympiad between various exotic substances that inhabit human bodies. Etc.

But to trot out this point every time a scandal hits the IPL (or any form of cricket) is to miss the wood for the trees. Yes, no sport is immune from irregularities but the strength and integrity of any league is a function of how swiftly and efficiently the authorities act. Everyone understands that a fledgling league awash with money will face these hurdles, but there’s no point expecting the ills to go away if those in charge don’t send out a clear message.

Take a case from the first massive scandal in Major League Baseball:

The Chicago White Sox lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in 1919. The iconic “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and seven others were found to have accepted $5,000 each to throw the series. A year later, in front of a jury, Jackson accepted to have been part of a fix.

In 1921 a Chicago court acquitted the players off wrongdoing. But the newly appointed first commissioner of the league, Kenesaw Landis, banned the players from major and minor league baseball. Here’s what he said a day after the players were acquitted:

Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked ballplayers and gamblers, where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.

In many ways the match-fixing episode of 2000 was cricket’s ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe’ moment. Yet the punishments were too soft, so soft that Ajay Jadeja even returned to play first-class cricket after his ban.

The Fixing-Is-Not-Just-An-IPL-Problem proposition

True, cricket has had fixing before the IPL existed. And Test cricket, with some passages of play that don’t necessarily affect the outcome, is probably easier to manipulate for spot-fixers.

But hang on a minute.

Never before have you had such a large pool of Indian domestic cricketers exposed to so much money for such a short period of time. Never before has an Indian first-class cricketer gone from living in a chawl to earning millions of bucks in a matter of two months. Never before has first-class cricket in India interested bookies as much as now (of course, we’ve had scandals with Ajay Sharma and others in the past but please, the amount of money that was bet on domestic cricket was nowhere close to what floats around now).

Look at it from a bookie’s angle: only eleven men play for India. For him to tap into one or two of them is a huge deal. Instead here he has, gifted to him on a platter, about a hundred Indian first-class cricketers to choose from. All he needs to do is find one or two that do his bidding and voila, he’s struck pay-dirt.

Consider the case of Amit Singh: he played for Royals last season and joined the bookies this time around. His insider knowledge would have surely helped. Now think of the number of such ex-franchise cricketers that the bookies can try and snare and you get an idea of why the IPL is so ripe for these deals.

The Cricketers-Are-Only-Representative-Of-A-Wider-Society angle

Of course, nobody is suggesting that cricketers live in a cocoon. They are from the same society that produces smugglers, black-money hoarders, and murderers (who then go on to sit in parliament). So there is no reason to hold sportsmen to a higher moral standard.

But here’s the thing:

Sportsmen sometimes really matter. Some inspire you like no politician can. Some perform such memorable deeds that you think about those moments all your life (something that you may not say about your polite and gentlemanly neighborhood grocery store owner – who, you may later learn, was actually a wife-beater and the head of a land-grabbing syndicate. “Oh, my plumber/carpenter/mason/electrician let me down by being such a crook in his personal life” is a line I’m yet to hear).

Here’s the legendary (now late) Brazilian footballer Socrates (in an interview with The Blizzard):

I think they [footballers] have a social responsibility, especially in a country like ours that is lacking in so much. Footballers can be the spokespeople of their communities — you can be like an MP without a seat.

(NB: There’s a fine distinction between seeing sportsmen as heroic figures and as torchbearers. I don’t think we should treat sportsmen as heroes and we don’t need to be taking life lessons from them, but we can surely hope they understand the power they wield in making a difference, however slight, to the wider society).

The BCCI-Can-Only-Do-So-Much cliché

Yes. Governments, companies, businesses, CEOs etc can only do so much. But the basic assumption behind this cliché (or so I would assume) is that the BCCI has got its act together in the first place.

If the BCCI has any hopes of cleaning Indian cricket of all its attendant dirt, it can begin by looking at itself in the mirror. Its president also owns an IPL team. The Indian captain, who plays for the president’s IPL team, is also an employee of the president’s company. And that’s just the start.

It’s a well-documented fact that the whole IPL is a conflict of a hundred interests (and this even after the Modi-Tharoor bust-up in 2010). Mumbai Indians alleged foul-play during the 2011 auction. And that snowballed into a much bigger issue.

The bottom-line being: it’s far-fetched to expect your employees (i.e. players) to be models of probity and uprightness when your company operates like a banana republic.