Silly M(a)id-on

Coming a little late to the party but…

I streamed yesterday’s live play between India and South Africa. It was a Ten Sports stream, so I wasn’t too surprised when ads cut off play for the first and last balls of each over. I wasn’t surprised when Ravi Shastri plugged Castle Lager “It all comes together blah-de-blah” a few times. Or when the screen shrank to fit in an ad during play.

But what did shock me was the sudden appearance an ad banner on the field near the slips. It was during live telecast, not a replay, so for a second I thought it was actually there on the ground and was a little confused because that was an odd place for a logo. I hadn’t seen this one before. Or where the broadcaster superimposes its own ads on those boards around the boundary line (is that even legal?). It was quite incredulous. I felt my brain start to melt a little bit. The first, and only time, I have had that happen before is when I sat through Rajni Saar’s Sivaji.

I remember a few posts from previous IPLs where some bloggers had actually made jokes about this. About how ads can be put up on empty screen spaces like the grounds and the sky. Sad to note that it is a reality now. WC2011 and IPL4 coverage will break new grounds in India when it come to advertising I guess.

There is a silver lining to me not being able to make it to India for the World Cup after all.

I was travelling the day the match fixing scandal broke out. I had no idea how big it was as I was only able to catch the headline. I read something to the effect of “England win among allegations of match-fixing” and I thought “Pakistan has lost a match, so nothing new in these allegations.” The fact that that “worthy” tabloid called News Of The World had broken the story did nothing to make me take this stuff seriously.

I was forced to change my mind a little bit after watching the videos once I got back. But I have been back and forth since then.

The evidence is compelling. But on the other hand it is, after all, NoTW’s evidence.

It is foolish to assume that match/spot fixing does not go on. But on the other hand, why hang someone without a proper investigation?

Proper investigation is not something you can expect from our worthy cricket administrators (regardless of nationality). But without that, and punishing the guilty, how do you begin to clean up the mess?

So where does that leave the average cricket fan like me?

With so many thoughts running through my head, I thought I would be able to pen down a long winded, well articulated post to express all of that. But it turns out that writing eloquent posts is not something I am particularly good at. So after 4 futile attempts in the last 3 days, I am doing the next best thing and making a list of all those thoughts instead, because frankly, I need to get this out of my system.

• 10 years ago, I suffered a massive blow to my belief system when it was revealed that Hansie Cronje and Ajay Jadeja were involved in match fixing. These were 2 of my favourite cricketers and I just could not believe that these guys could be involved in such a thing (specially Hansie). My only source of information then being newspapers and NDTV, not being net savvy enough to discover reports like this and not being cynical enough in general, I took all the proceedings at face value. With the guilty punished, I happily moved on with my life and my cricket, telling myself that it might not be perfect, but it is going to be ok. A cousin of mine would tell me that I am an idiot to still follow cricket so religiously and that I lived in “La La Land” (his words) if I still took everything that happened on the field at face value. But I ignored him of course and I never attempted to find out what sort of “investigations” had gone on in ’00 and how credible the punishments meted out were. Surely, living in denial is not an option now. (Please note PCB et al. DENIAL….NOT AN OPTION).

• I wonder why I feel so disgusted and angry right now when these spot-fixing allegations obviously don’t come as a surprise. Why do I feel betrayed when at the back of my head I sort of knew that this stuff happens all the time? I really don’t understand myself.

• It has been only 3 days, and I have resolved a million times, and then backed down, that I will never watch a match again, and stop maintaining this blog. Over reaction? Possibly. Do I see myself as actually going through with this? Maybe not. At the moment though, I don’t see the point in weighing in India’s chances in a match when player X might already have decided to go for 100 runs in his 10 overs or Player Y has decided to throw his wicket away. I don’t see a point in gloating when India wins or moping at a loss. I question India’s T20 triumph and I wonder whether India could have won the WC in 2003 after all if it weren’t for these bookies. After all, why should I believe that Indians are not involved?

*******

Onto a couple of articles that have appeared online, that rankled a bit.

First off, Geoff Lawson in Sydney Morning Herald.

The instant reaction after watching the investigative videos was – why would you, a cricketer with such potential, want to stake your reputation for some money? What’s with all the greed? What about ethics? Etc etc.

Geoff’s article’s first half was a reality check in that regard. Of course you idiot! (The idiot being referred to here is me). If someone is powerful enough to run such a racket, wouldn’t they go to any lengths to ensure that all this runs smoothly? Why wouldn’t they threaten players to do their bidding? And surely, I don’t expect these players to become martyrs in order to “uphold their morals” and do the right thing. Of course, if your family is under threat, you do what you are asked to. I would too.

The thing that does bug me is this part –

I will never condone any form of fixing, but we should consider that a cricketer might not be thinking of personal gain but of getting money to buy a generator for his village because they don’t have electricity.

Um, yeah. Let’s not get carried away, shall we Geoff? A player gets a decent amount (not over the top, but decent enough) as match fee. One might want to be a little patient in order to save money to buy things? You know, like us mere mortals do?

Next up, Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian. The crux of his article is neatly summed up by the tagline “Lack of legitimate earning opportunities draws jealous players into the hands of unscrupulous bookmakers”.

Honestly, the premise is very offensive. So basically, if I am a very very capable software engineer and Google doesn’t want to employ me and let me earn big bucks (assuming that Google is the only place where I can earn big money as a s/w engg.) for whatever reason, even as my other not-so-bright classmates do so, Dileep would totally understand if I started indulging in industrial espionage? What sort of a shithead logic is that?

Lastly, maybe I am a very hard hearted person, but I don’t get all the outpouring of sympathy for Mohd. Aamer. Assuming he is guilty of course, clearly he is an adult and should have a sense of what is right and what is not. Unless his family was under threat, he had a choice to say no. And he didn’t. If that means the end of a cricket career, well, then so be it. Clearly, having the potential to excel is just not enough in this world. There are thousands of people who can vouch for that.

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