Will Dawood gang take over Indian cricket?, By S Gurumurthy A billion cheated”. This is how the media led the outcry on spot-fixing and betting in IPL cricket matches. Of course players were shockingly caught with women and money in their hotel rooms provided to bind them to bowl not to get wickets or bat not to make runs. Again shockingly, Gurunath Meiyappan, the son-in-law of the owner of Chennai Super Kings, an important team in the Indian Premier League [IPL] cricket, was found betting to make money on the side. Yet, it is ridiculous to say that a billion is cheated as the IPL cricket is piffle in comparison to the 2G scam, Coalgate and other loots of public assets running to lakhs of crores. The IPL format devised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) actually invites and co-opts touts, cheats and criminals. IPL has made a trade out of cricket for all to make money – for the BCCI which sells the popularity of the game, for businessmen who buy players like race horses, for the players who sell themselves in auctions and for the media which sells ad-space. Money has shut everyone’s mouth like a bone in dog’s mouth prevents the dog from barking. Result, no one dares to speak against how fraud inheres in IPL. How the IPL show has morally perverted the serious game of cricket is demonstrated by scantily dressed girls dancing as cheerleaders to stir up the lowest tastes in players and audience and brand the game as cheap stunt. Beautiful shots don’t need half-dressed girls to cheer up players or audience. Without women, as without money, spot-fixing wouldn’t have taken place. All spot-fixing stories begin with women escorts kept around players for honey-trapping them. History of all races tell us that women were engaged to trap men. Despite all talks of modernisation and equality, shockingly, use of women for mean ends still doesn’t shock. More. Auctioning the players in IPL format seems to revive the ancient Babylonian tradition of auctioning of brides. The only difference is that IPL is auctioning men. Imagine it is IPL for women. Will women cricketers be auctioned? The IPL method of auctioning of cricketers which begins with top players first and proceeds afterwards to next ones is modelled precisely on the Babylonian auction of the most beautiful brides first, moving down in the order. This auction model is cheap and cheapens cricket and cricketers. Besides easy money to players, post-match parties where wine flowed and scarcely-clad women were swinging around players have reduced the disciplined cricketers into bunch of lustful young men. IPL is now merely a formula to generate cheap money by belittling the serious game into like funny boxing shows meant for juveniles. Yet, neither did the audience nor the media protest against this perversion of the game’s soul. Given the history of how money has killed other games, and with the earlier match-fixing incidents in Indian cricket, the managers of cricket or the media in India could not have been unaware of the risks in opening the game to tsunami of money. Here is a brief history of match fixing from the latest to the earliest. In a stunning disclosure of match-fixing in football, the BBC reported (19.2.2013) that an ongoing European Police [Europol] investigation has revealed that football matches played across the world including a Champions League tie played in England were fixed. The Europol analysed thousands of emails, identified 425 match and club officials, players and criminals as suspects, obtained 80 search warrants, and arrested 50 persons and found 680 matches in 30 countries fixed. It saw an organised crime syndicate based in Asia as the kingpin in the fixing. This exposure came as a fore-warning ahead of IPL 2013. Illicit sports betting market dominated by crime is now estimated at $140 billions. The history of match-fixing is almost a century old. In 1919 US gamblers bribed several members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. Known as the Black Sox Scandal it later became the subject of a book and a movie. Since then there have been tens of instances of match-fixing by bribing all over the world. India figured in the match-fixing list for the first time in 2000 when Indian, Pakistani and South African cricketers were caught involved in match-fixing which first brought to light fixing the players to fix the matches. The offending players escaped then for want of law against match-fixing. Ten years on, even now there is no such law. Even the BCCI did not ask for a law. Kapil Sibal now promises a law. The arrests now made are on cheating on contracts between BCCI and players and owners, not any specific match-fixing law. And there is another angle which has more dangerous consequences. The Dubai nexus which Indian cricket developed in 1990s has connected the game of cricket to Dawood Ibrahim and integrated it as part of his global crime business syndicate. The D-gang owns half of Bollywood through money, connections, threats, attacks and killing. Outlook magazine (August 25, 1997) wrote that the underworld finances films, compels unwilling top stars to sign, ensures that they keep up their schedule, forces on producers unwanted actors and actresses, and threaten producers to sell overseas rights of their films to D-gang proxies. T-series owner Gulshan Kumar was killed by Don’s men in a gruesome attack. Have things changed since? No. As recently as May 23, 2013, Dainik Bhaskar, a popular Hindi daily, wrote that Dawood’s links with Bollywood have never been secret; Bollywood stars, including Mandakini, Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor have been spotted with the Don; the Don is known for vetoing release of films and threatening stars and producers for money and for sale of overseas rights to their fake companies. Hrithik Roshan’s father Rakesh Roshan who defied the Don was shot in January 2000. The D-gang has virtually taken over Bollywood by lure and fear. Now it has penetrated the equally popular cricket. The D-gang links with police and politicians are well-known. This is what the India Today (27.5.20110 wrote: “What is still intact is his [Dawood’s] political support. In the early ‘90s, it was rumoured that around 75 politicians owed their entry to Parliament to Dawood though none could confirm his clout because there was nothing on paper. Politicians such as Bhai Thakur and Suresh alias Pappu Kalani were arrested for links with Dawood around the same time.” Outlook magazine (4.2.1996) had earlier claimed, based on Home Ministry documents, that Sharad Pawar who later headed, and still influences, the BCCI and also the International Cricket Council, has had close links with Dawood. The Delhi police now seeks detention of almost all bookies who fixed matches under anti-terror law for their have nexus with D-gang. The emerging picture is scary. Dawood has penetrated not only Bollywood with his gun and money but also Indian cricket with Bollywood beauties and money, with his gun in reserve. The lure of Dawood’s money and the fear of his gun torment Bollywood, its stars and producers. With many in politics and police his undisclosed partners, the state is mute. The Don’s gun, wielded in Bollywood, is yet to be used in cricket. Imagine a telephone call from D-gang to Dhoni or Tendulkar. Will they swing their bat without fear? Unlikely. Will they even whisper that they got Don’s call? Doubtful. The ongoing Europol probe into match-fixing in football points to some Asian crime syndicate - D-gang? - as the kingpin. Now Delhi police investigation unveils D-gang as the off-record partner in IPL cricket. So criminals fix games and make billions. If Indian cricket has to be saved from D-gang, the first casualty has to be its IPL format. It is impossible to fix a five-day test. Difficult to fix a one-day match. But IPL’s 20-over matches invite fixers, and are fixed easily. It needs to be banned forthwith. Just banning cheerleaders, post-match parties won’t do. Otherwise the present state of Bollywood at the hands of D-gang will be the fate of Indian cricket. newindianexpress/opinion/Will-Dawood-gang-take-over-Indian-cricket/2013/06/07/article1623389.ece
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:46:54 +0000
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