We need to come down harder on Match Fixing Culprits
Before I come down hard on the ICC and the other stakeholders in cricket, let me compliment them for having taken the right first steps in the latest match fixing scandal that has yet again engulfed cricket. We are so used to a toothless ICC that we were all surprised to see them taking the tough decision to suspend the three Pakistani cricketers accused of match fixing. What they now need to do is not back track and instead take the next few steps and bring this episode to an effective and correct close.
Had the ICC cracked the whip harder on the match fixing culprits in the past, probably, match fixing in cricket would have been a thing of the past, or at best, reduced to something which could at best be a possibility in second and third grade games. That the Pakistan players fixed a Test Match at Lord’s – the highest level of the game and that too being played at the Mecca of Cricket – tells you that they were acting without fear.
My hang heads in shame when I see the tainted former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin in the Indian parliament. He is a member of India’s ruling party which runs a coalition government of which Sharad Pawar, the President of the ICC is a minister with.
Match Fixing is no ordinary crime. A match fixing is a traitor in every sense of the word.
That a traitor has managed to become an MP tells you how low the Congress was ready to stoop down to increase its numbers in the Indian Parliament.
More horribly, it speaks of how easily the people of his constituency forgave Azharuddin. How could they trust a person to work for their welfare, when he had already once compromised with their nation’s honour – all for the sake of money?
It’s time that match fixing is treated as something beyond just a ‘crime of cricket’. If a petty pickpocket deserves a few days behind the bars, it is time the ICC file a further criminal charge with the police against these accused who are far more dangerous than the pickpockets.
Match Fixers should be put behind bars. For how long – let the judges in the court decide. But a mere suspension or ban is too small a punishment for too big a crime.
This time it more or less looks like an open and shut case against the three Pakistani cricketers. If the initial investigation of the ICC finds them guilty, they should hand over the case to the police to investigate and file criminal charges against these culprits.
Furthermore, the ICC should take a leaf out of the governing bodies of other leading sports of the world. The International Weightlifting Federation suspends a country, for example, if they find a number of cases from players of one country (doping).
It’s definitely high time that the ICC began to mull such a course of action against the PCB.
