...And my cup runneth over

Saturday, 8.30 AM: We enter the Chinnaswamy stadium and a sigh of disappointment echoes as a whole across the stadium. No, yours truly, or his friends, are not famous enough to warrant such strong reactions. The reason for the mass disappointment was being displayed on the huge electronic display screen mounted at the BEML end: "Australia has won the toss and are going to bat first." We didn't sigh, we swore, as we made our way to the best possible seats we could get in the North stand. This was the first time that I was going to watch a test match live at the. And while I am an ardent cricket fan, the biggest purpose of this visit – atleast for me – was to watch Sachin Tendulkar bat. I won’t go into how big a Sachin fan I am and blah, blah, blah. Every sport fanatic out there will understand that; because every sport fanatic will have a player whose career they have religiously followed ever since they got hooked on to the sport.

So anyway, here we were, at one of the more famous test venues in the country, waiting for the play to start and hoping that an out-of-form Indian bowling attack would be able to dismiss a reasonably strong Australian line-up cheaply on a shirtfront of a wicket. After a lot of struggle, and a brilliant second session on the second day, India finally managed to dismiss Australia on 478. The highlight of the innings was Marcus North getting to his century to end his run of poor form (something that a lot of players manage to do against India).

The end of the Australian innings about 10 minutes before lunch raised the decibel levels of the crowds considerably; since many of them – including us – wouldn’t be returning the next day due to the mundane routine of going to the office. Now, watching a game live at the stadium is an amazing experience; one that anyone with more than a passing interest in any sport should undergo. Apart from the Mexican waves, the poster waving at the camera, and the calling-your-relatives-that-you-may-appear-on-TV-any-moment, it’s the crowd reaction that is amazing to watch. It’s as if the parts become the whole. Every wicket, century (by an Indian or opposition player), or, at times, even a single run is greeted by a single loud cheer rising from the stadium as a whole. Every catch dropped, stumping missed, or the instance of a batsman getting beaten is accompanied by a single ‘ooh’ emanating from the stadium as a whole much akin to the supporting notes belted out by the chorus singers in a song. And God forbid if an opposition player has the temerity to exchange words with an Indian one.

So, Day 2, session 3; the Indian team commenced its innings. Sehwag and Murali Vijay walk out to start the proceedings for India; loud cheers accompanying their arrival at the crease. Sehwag sets about his business in his usual fashion – trying to get all of the 478 runs in a single session. The Aussies, however, had warned that they had specific plans for Sehwag, and they soon bore fruition as Sehwag fell to a short delivery off Ben Hilfenhaus. Though I let out a loud ‘No!!’ of disappointment with the others, the evil part of me (or the devil on the left shoulder) smiled wickedly; one more and then I would have been paid for my patience. In walks the local hero, Rahul Dravid; to loud cheers from the crowd. After poking around for 10 minutes for a single, he edges one to first slip off Mitchell Johnson; his favored mode of dismissal now-a-days. A loud ‘oh!’ echoes around the stadium followed by deathly silence (it’s hard to believe such silence can be found in the presence of such a boisterous mob). Dravid has hardly made it halfway to the pavilion when the noise starts revving up again; much like an engine. The reason: Sachin has been spotted getting out of the dressing room on the 1^st tier of the pavilion. Rahul Dravid must be one of the most unfortunate number 3 in the history cricket. For all his resilience, his fantastic contribution to Indian cricket, and his popularity, whenever he has batted in India, he’s had to listen to people cheering at his dismissal. What’s more, there have been times when he’s been booed on his way to the crease and cheered on his way out. Quite a thankless way to treat a sportsperson who not only has given his all for the country, but also has been a fantastic ambassador for the country as well as the game.

But then the man walking in next hasn’t done any less well for India. He’s done well enough to ensure that even when we refer to Him in pronouns, we break all the grammatical laws and use uppercase. The man himself though seemed oblivious to the brouhaha around him. He walks calmly to the pitch, taps the bat at the good length spot, takes his guard, and starts doing what he does best – and what we have come to see him do – bat. He began sedately enough, taking a single off Hauritz. For the next half an hour he was watchful, yet confident. Now the time and the situation in which Sachin walked in meant that that was no chance of us getting to see him reach his 50. There was another stat though, which everyone was eager to see him achieve before the end of the day: becoming the first man to scale Mount 14k. That Indians are obsessed with stats is no secret (perhaps this has something to do with the illustrious history of mathematicians that we have had); and Tendulkar has given them enough stats to chew upon for a lifetime. Before the start of the game, he needed 27 runs to achieve the target, and I am sure that almost every fan present in the stadium was counting every run that he was making (I know I was). With the light fading and Sachin stranded on 25, there were more than a few anxious faces in the crowd, and every dot ball played by Murali Vijay was greeted with cries of ‘oh!’ or, in some cases, a variety of swear words. But a short ball from Haurtiz, and some mystical field placements from Ponting, saw Sachin punch one through the covers for a boundary to reach the much awaited landmark. The next few overs saw a flurry of boundaries as Sachin raced to 44. And as is the human wont, the traditional habit of ‘thoda aur’ kicked in, with the crowd willing Sachin to get to his 50 as soon as possible. The umpires though had different ideas as they whipped out the much antagonized light meter and declared the condition to be too dark for play.

And so amidst much booing (for the umpires) and much more cheering (for Him), Sachin walked off, calm as ever, quietly acknowledging the cheers of the crowd on his way. As for me, well, my only wish was to see Sachin walk upto the crease and take his famous stance just once. Considering that, my wish was fulfilled many times over (44 to be exact…yeah bite me! Even I am obsessed with stats). What happened next is ofcourse present in all the cricket archives. Sachin went on to make a double century and an unbeaten fifty in the second innings. 267 runs and getting out only once. Following the match sitting in the confines of a claustrophobic cubicle was gut-wrenching ofcourse, but then when I think of that one evening when I saw the God of cricket bat out there, all I can say is that my cup runneth over.

Time to 'fix' the problem

It's sad that at a time when cricket is struggling to stay afloat, its representatives (read the cricketers) are indulging in activities that not only besmirch the 'Gentleman's Game', but also threaten to drag it into the cesspool of extinction. The recent disclosures about the incidents of 'spot-fixing' are threatening to drag the game back into the dark ages. The ever-expanding broadcast of the game also brought along with it the evil of match-fixing. Fans all over the world were shocked to see an ashen-faced Hansie Cronje confessing to match-fixing about a decade ago. Given his record as the South African captain and as an ambassador of South African cricket in general, this was an earth shattering revelation to say the least. The question on everybody's mind at that time was 'Who else?' In what turned out to be the most turbulent period in our beloved game's history - along with the apartheid period and certainly graver than the bodyline series - the bottom suddenly seemed to fall open. As the ICC - aided by the Scotland Yard - cracked down on the match-fixing racket, many notable names came to light. Bans were handed out like candies during Halloween and the matter came to rest.

However, when the Butt-Asif-Aamir incident came to light, some serious questions, which should have been answered much earlier, reared their ugly heads. The biggest of them was: Was the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit really successful in weeding out match-fixing from the game? As the situation stands right now, the answer seems to be a clear NO. One could argue that the cricketers themselves, as representatives of the game and of their countries, should be responsible for their actions. But then if we lived in such an ideal world, then the vocation of a Policeman would not exist. But yet it does, because however educated and sensible a man may be, there are times when he inevitably falls victim to unforeseen circumstances; or just the darker side of his nature. Among the cricketers banned in that incident, most have had their bans overturned, a few of them have served their bans - as it was for a limited period of time, and a very few percentage of the players are actually serving the ban. In fact, I am having a lot of difficulty coming up with a name other then Mohammed Azharuddin; who, by the way, has already appealed in the Indian courts. In between these two events, there have been a few incidences where we have seen evidence that match-fixing still exists at the highest level of the game, the Marlon Samuels incident being an example.

So the biggest question is, how to minimize match-fixing in cricket. The reason I say 'minimize' and not 'eradicate' is because cricket has become so big a business in Asia,  that uprooting match-fixing out of cricket has become a next-to-impossible task, one which cannot be accomplished without total dedication and commitment not only from the governing body, but also from the players. But then young players coming from poor backgrounds can prove to be easy victims to bookmakers. The brash and devil-may-care attitude of youth fails to see the consequences of their actions. Right now, the only way to try and stop this malpractice is to discourage the players from even considering the offers that may come their way from the bookmakers, because it seems that any efforts to catch the real culprits do not seem to be bearing fruition. And the only way to do that is to set firm examples. Handing out life bans may sound harsh, and I can already see most people unsheathing their everyone-deserves-a-second-chance swords, but then there just doesn't seem to be any other way to deal with this menace. Atleast not one that seems to be openly visible. It's true that a wise man always learns from his mistakes, but a man with some common sense learns from others' mistake too. It's time that ICC learned from it's mistake put a stop to this disease that has our beautiful game in a 'fix'.