In a fix

   

It was a bad start of the week for me. Monday morning, I gave up on a long standing debate, agreeing that I was wrong, and everyone else was right. The match was fixed or to put it in my colleague's words the entire ICC tournament, IPL, world cup 2011 or any other cricket match after 2000 had been fixed. This debate had started as a discussion few months when someone in the office had sent out an email with title “IPL schedule 2013”. And since then, every day when we all sat in the office cafeteria having tea, the common topics were cricket, BCCI, IPL, MSD and fixing! What followed was a series heated discussions over how much the game has changed in the past decade. These were a bunch of guys passionate about the game cherishing its past glory and condemning the current sad state of affairs that it had got into. I was way behind in the knowledge that they had for the game, but that did not discourage me in defending my point any less, that “not all matches are fixed.”

My obsession for cricket started from a young age and had reached its par during the International Cricket World Cup 1999. I have vivid memories of this tournament which was held in summer of 99. While team India could barely make it to super six (acquiring the last position), it was team South Africa that I had set my eyes on. Not only was I fascinated by the way they played; I felt a strange kind of connection with their players or one player for that matter. Having enormous admiration for Lance Klusener, he was my hero. And in the semifinal match against Australia, when he took that run (that he could never finish) and ran half way through the pitch (with 2 deliveries left in hand), I actually cried like a baby and my sisters laughed. Bill lawry's voice was announcing hysterically, "Donald did not go, Klusener came - what a disapponting end for South Africa". It was that day that I learnt, and instantly dreaded, the concept of 'net rate' that led Australia to the finals despite of the tie that the match had ended on.

I had spent the next 2 days mourning on the loss of my favorite team and player and cursing Alan Donald for not reacting faster. Having no interest left in who wins the finals, my only consolation was when my sister called out and said “Look, Klusener won the man of the series award!”

The following year, in 2000 Cricket fans were disappointed with a revelation that hit the news. Hansie Cronje, the South African captain was charged for 'match fixing'. “What is match fixing?” I had asked my grandfather when I read the news headline on the last page of a Times of India copy that he was reading. He turned the newspaper over, read the news and looked at me, “He had taken money to lose the match”, he explained. “But he would get money even when he wins, right?” I asked. To which he had made a long face and said “Not as much as he's getting paid for not winning it. They have corrupted the game,” he declared “There's no point in watching these matches now.”

I can still recall the disappointment that I had felt. I was 11 year old struggling to understand what exactly was corruption and how could it affect a game that I loved so much.

I don’t have a lot of memories associated with cricket after that. Years later, I got fascinated and involved in the game again because of a 6 feet 2 inches tall guy who had hit a 119 meters Six to Brett Lee's delivery. His name was Yuvraj Singh :). It was in the same 20-20 tournament that he had hit those 6 sixes in an over. In the years to follow team India had acquired some real good players and a captain who had his head in his place, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MSD). What I really admired about MSD was his composure on the field and the consistency with which he maintained it. Being mere spectators of the game, and not understanding the detailed technicalities of it, you could still count on MSD that he would get through somehow, no matter what the situation. But my open appreciation for MSD often clashed with skeptical remarks from his critics who claim that MSD is just one lucky guy who was came in time when team India was already at its best. And every time I hear this remark, I remember that dialogue from movie Chak De India 'Achhe players ki hi kismet achhi hoti hai' (Good players earn good fortune).

In a very recent incident, they talked about Dhoni's assets and his shares in a sport company questioning his involvement in the fixing scams and his integrity. The hide and seek game between scams and celebrity being so common these days, the average public react to it for one day and forget it the next day. But this was about cricket. In a country like India where cricket is being followed like a religion, Sachin is addressed as god and an India-Pakistan match is considered like a festival!

Despite all the rational logics, human brain sees and perceives only what it likes. And I liked cricket- to the point where I had shut my brains to avoid the cynics and their remarks that every match was fixed.

But unfortunately I had an eye opening moment. In the recent ICC finals against England, MSD gave Ishant Sharma to bowl the 18th over (with the risk of overlooking his pathetic economic rate) and like a prodigal son who had returned back home to make daddy proud, he took those two major wickets. It doesn’t take a brain with folds as many as Einstein’s, to realize the fact; the one fact that stared right into my eye— it was scripted.

And if at that moment my brain would have had any counter arguments, I would have laughed at myself for supporting a baseless assumption for so long.