The Great Indian Circus

Avinash Varma

I am frustrated and I am angry and I am astonished and I am amused. But none of these emotions are really new or surprising if one happens to be a spectator in the circus of Indian cricket. There is the usual cast to keep us all entertained. There is ringmaster or masters (if you are picky) of course, and there is a joker, and there are those who jump through hoops when commanded, and, of course, the trapeze artists who seem to hang on just when you think they may fall rather ungracefully to earth. I will leave it to your imagination to decide who fits what role.

My views are hardly unique and my passion for Indian cricket perhaps even less so. But after years of having my intelligence insulted by those who administer, play, watch and comment on cricket I realized that to remain silent now would make me a participant in this orgy of greed, arrogance and misuse of power perpetrated by the BCCI.

I am not astonished by Lele's desperate remark that there is no match-fixing in India. There is an old saying that it is better to keep one's mouth shut and let people have some doubts about one's intelligence rather than open one's mouth and remove all doubt. It is not the first time that something stupid has come out of Lele's mouth and it won't be the last either. But it is the collective arrogance of Dungarpur, Muthiah and Lele that is hard to swallow under the circumstances. It is unthinkable to accept the notion that these men did not know or were unaware of any "wrong doings" in Indian cricket. I refuse to accept this fact and I really don't give a damn whether there is any "hard" evidence or not to prove this point. We are all so caught up in the legal claptrap that we seem to have practically told our collective conscience to shut up even while we listen eagerly to endless stream of nonsense from BCCI.

I don't know what serves as evidence of BCCI's corruption, but let me share a story with those of you who care to read on.

It was the autumn of 1996 here in the United States. India was playing Pakistan in Toronto in one of the Sahara Cup matches. Being a rabid cricket fan and being so far away from "home" the Sahara Cup seemed a perfect way to spend a week in front of the TV to watch these eternal rivals take each other on. These were first class matches or so we thought. I don't exactly remember which match it was, the second or third or the fourth, and I don't have too many images etched in my mind from those games, but there is one image that is still vivid and that is of Azharuddin prodding forward to a well-flighted ball from Saqlain Mustaq, the ball clearly hitting the pad and ballooning to silly point and Azhar walking back even before the Pakistani fielders had stopped appealing.

For a split second I did not realise what had happened. I have seen and played enough of cricket to know that Azharuddin could not have been lbw. He was too far out on the front foot for one and the ball had hit him just around the knee. So he must have been out caught. The replay showed clearly that the bat was no where near the ball at the time of contact. But in retrospect, that is not important. What struck me then, and what still rankles, is the manner in which the batsman started walking back to the pavilion. The entire sequence seemed so orchestrated, so planned and so easy that I found it hard to believe it actually happened. I have no idea whether that passes as an instance of throwing the game. But it all looked too bizarre for me to digest. India of course lost that match and I believe that series. But it was the way the team lost and Azhar's dismissal in particular that first sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind about the state of one-day cricket and that of Indian cricket in particular.

I am no sleuth and my ability to deduce is severely limited by the resources I have to test my theories. But I like to believe that I am cautious in my judgements and opinions. I also have instincts, which told me clearly that day that something was not quite right with the way Sahara Cup was played. It seemed all too easy, even allowing for the glorious uncertainties of cricket. I remember telling my friend that I really believed that these Sahara fixtures were predetermined. But I was prepared to accept that it was just my personal opinion and maybe not entirely accurate. I was of course no Azharuddin and I dare say that I would have been able to play Saqlain any better myself !

Soon thereafter, India was in the West Indies for a full series. A couple of my friends and I could not resist the urge to make a trip to Jamaica for the first Test match. On the evening after the second or third day's play, we were invited to dine with a few Indian players at the residence of a family friend. We could hardly believe our luck. There we were, enjoying Rasam and rice with Kuruvilla, and Prasad, Kumble and Joshi, Laxman and Dravid and the team manager Subba Rao. We chatted and asked questions that cricket fans typically ask of their cricket heroes. I remember congratulating Dravid and Laxman for their fine half centuries.

After a few minutes of casual banter I asked one of the players about Sahara Cup. In course of the conversation, I asked him whether or not he thought that the outcomes of the Sahara Cup matches were "pre-decided." My friend and I expected to hear a firm "NO" but to our utter disbelief, all we got was a smile and change of subject.

I am sure that as time passes, I will probably forget some of the incredible shots that Lara played in his innings of 80-plus on the fourth day of that Test match, but I will never forget the "smile" and the "look" that this Indian player gave us as he tried to steer the conversation away towards a safer topic. My son is now seven so I know instinctively when he is trying to be evasive to hide the truth. The reason I am not naming the player is simple. None of the players who were present in that room that evening has been named in the CBI's report and there seems to be no reason for any of them to be named. It is also not my intent to create stories, have my fifteen minutes of fame or cast a shadow of doubt on individual players. I don't have transcripts of my conversation with the players but I have pictures from that dinner that are part of my personal cricket memorabilia.

I tell this story to illustrate and support my personal conviction that the integrity of Indian cricket and cricketers has been compromised since a very long time and that it is naïve to believe that none of the BCCI officials knew or had any knowledge of what was going on. The player that I mentioned was a relatively junior player then and my contention is this, that if he seemed to have his doubts about the legitimacy of the Sahara games, how could these be portrayed as serious first class fixtures? Wasn't there something basically dishonest about this whole thing? Wasn't this an instance of duping the public in the name of spreading the game?

My intention is to lend support to that school of thought which refutes the easy explanation offered by Muthiah & Co. that BCCI did not know about match-fixing or bears no responsibility. As a mere fan and a spectator I can't be expected to have hard "proof" when the CBI itself is hard-pressed to pursue the matter in court. But I have my perceptions and I have my instincts and I have a reasonable knowledge and understanding of the game to recognize patterns. It is this pattern that leads one to believe that Indian cricket is corrupt and that BCCI is a corrupt organization. I would challenge anyone to convince me that the Sahara Cup exercise was not a sham.

I also believe that in a strange sort of a way that the players themselves are victims and not nearly as worthy of condemnation as we may be prone to think. I believe that they were just small fish in a sea full of greedy sharks. I refuse to believe that none of the Indian managers/coaches, starting with Wadekar, Madanlal, or Gaekwad, knew or had doubts as to what was happening. But we are small people satisfied with easy explanations, explanations that absolve us of any responsibility to probe deeper and further lest we find some ugly truth about our own selves. We believe so deeply in the glorious uncertainties of cricket that we have just come to accept "bad" shots as part of the game. It is, after all, so easy in cricket to just "nick" a ball while appearing to defend or to appear to try "valiantly' to make the ground while being run out.

It amuses me now to hear Mongia and Jadeja vehemently deny their involvment. It amuses me more to hear Prabhakar's claim that he is a victim. I saw that match in Kanpur where Prabhakar and Mongia made an absolute mockery of cricket not to mention make utter fools of the spectators on the ground. To this day it remains one of the most bewildering displays of batting that I have seen and to this day it defies logic. Prabhakar and Mongia should have been banned from cricket for life right there and then but it did not happen. Now they offer this nebulous and unsubstantiated notion that they were only obeying orders from the dressing room. If I had never played cricket would I have ever known that there is a difference in not throwing the wicket and not making an effort to win?

The CBI report only confirms my worst fears about Indian cricket. Little surprise then that inspite of all the talent we are still underachievers. The CBI report and what it contains may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg and we may never get to find how big of chunk lies beneath the surface. As far as I am concerned, all of us who form Indian cricket's value chain, the players, the administrators, the spectators, and the media, we are all guilty. Some of us are guilty through direct actions and some of us are guilty by association.

I have a feeling that this circus is here to stay for a while so I am going to sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Although I pretty much know the plot and am quite familiar with the cast by now, I still come and take my ringside seat hoping that perhaps this time around someone might have changed the climax. Maybe launch the joker from a cannon or see an angry lion make a meal out of the ringmaster, or something equally unexpected. There is a guy sitting next to me who is humming an old tune - Jeena Yahan Marna Yahan... Iske Seeva jaana kahan... Jee chahe jab humko awaaz do... Hum the yaheen hum hain yahaan... He smiles knowingly when I glance at him. I can't help but smile back.

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