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.

Bas upar upar se bolte hain, dil se nahi chahte!

I have been in hiding for the last 24 hours. I had to…after the hiding India got. So, the last 24 hours were spent in Denial. That was Stage 1.

This is Stage 2.

You wanna know why you lost the game yesterday, India? You wanna know why?? Here’s how it happened-

- Going in with  3 seamers when the pitch is declared to be a graveyard for fast bowlers? Bad idea. Leaving out Mishra in the bargain? Even worse.

- Dhoni said in the after-match interview “I have never seen so many runs scored backward of point.” (Malik scored a LOT of runs in that area) Really Dhoni? So it didn’t occur to you to put a fielder there for that?

- Yusuf Pathan -> 56/1 and 5 runs. ‘nuf said. Try Nayar. How much worse can it be? You might get a pleasant surprise due to his novelty factor.

- Harbhajan Singh -> 71/1 and 13 runs.  Try Mishra. Seriously.

- Gambhir -> Did the groin inury affect your brain too, Gautam? Basics man, basics…

- Kohli/Raina -> Someone forgot to tell you I guess. You are playing in an ODI. That’s right. O-D-I. One Day International. Repeat after me….One…Day….International. There you go. Remember this for tommorow. Try and “construct” an innings. You cannot blast your way out of trouble here always.

-Dravid -> That was your chance to be the hero. The saviour. And you blew it! Repeat after me….One…Day….International. Geddit?

Losing to Pakistan in an ICC event…and now SA is out of the tournament…sheesh!!

Stage 3.

All is forgiven if you beat Australia tommorow. I’ll help you. I’ll stuff my fantasy team with Australians even if that means using up all my transfers.

Didn’t I say that I don’t think India will go far in this tournament in my last post? Well, I take it back. Now I want India to qualify for the finals. And Pakistan too. And I want India to win the Cup. So there.

Don’t write me off an as infidel yet! Like any good Indian I still believe we will beat the crap out of Pakistan tomorrow. But in general, the team is not inspiring much confidence this time. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s wrong (It’s not you…it’s me). Important batsmen are injured. Bowlers are off-colour. Fielding has been meh for quite some time now. The Compaq Cup (touted as “preparation” for CT) didn’t exactly rock my world. And the lesser said about that warm up against NZL the better.

As an aside, I get very uncomfortable at the thought of India playing NZL in multinational tournaments. I think we don’t have a very good record against them in such matches, warmup or regular. Some Champions Trophy final(the 2nd edition?), T20 WC 2007 come to mind. Can anyone confirm this? Do we always/mostly lose to NZL in such tournaments?

Anyway, what I need to see is a confident win over Pakistan. Sachin, Rahul…show us what you are made of. Yusuf Pathan…please justify your place in the squad. The fast bowler brigade…get a grip! Remind us again why you all were being touted as one of the best in business and a balanced attack  not so long ago.

Go India Go!!

Shane Warne thinks we don’t need them anymore. Harsha Bhogle has a point when he says “If you remove the ODI from the mix, the gulf between T20 and Tests, from a batting point of view, becomes way too vast, and over time you end up with a situation where players are good enough to play either the one or the other.”

Peter Roebuck thinks There Is Life In The ODI Yet. While Dileep Premachandran calls for an overhaul.

There has been a lot of talk about ODIs needing “a context”. Lots of ideas are being thrown about. No more bilateral series, no phony 4-match triangular series, playing ODIs as a build up to Test matches on tours, splitting each innings into 2 etc. Leela made a point about ODIs series being an interesting watch these days only if there is some off-field drama associated with it, and I find myself agreeing with it. But then there wasn’t always some kind of drama associated with ODIs when I used to stay up late and see all those matches, was there? (or was I really fokat those days?)

I mean, all of India’s matches were seen simply because India was playing. All of Australia’s matches were seen because they were the numero uno team and I wanted to see if any of their opponents were giving them a run for their money. Pakistan’s matches were followed cheer the other team because earlier Pakistan losing used to be equal to India winning somehow. All of South Africa’s matches were seen because when they were not busy choking, they used to play good cricket. And for Shaun Pollock.

And now when I find myself trying to write a preview for the Compaq Cup, I don’t know what to say. I mean yeah, I’m happy that India is finally back in action. And I am super excited to see how Dravid will fare and all. But it’s not how it is supposed to be. This series (and the Eng-Aus one) seems so pointless that I am tempted to label it as another Fake ODI Series. As someone commented on someone’s blog (and I paraphrase here because I don’t remember where I read this)

It takes just 4 matches to decide a tri-series, but it takes 7 one-dayers to conclude that England suck at pyjama cricket.

Indeed.

I am not too bothered about the loss to NZ. What does bother me is the fitness of certain team members and match weariness. On the other hand, Ishant’s bowling was a relief. RP Singh gives me a lot of confidence because of the awesome IPL he had and Ojha looked good in parts too. If only our openers strike gold soon…sigh…

Anyways…tommorow’s match is important for reasons more than it being a warm up game. No two teams playing can capture the magic of an India-Pak match for me . Hope I am able to catch some live non-Cricinfo action.