Dirrty blue boyz?

ALLEN O'BRIEN / TNN / Sep 16, 2005, 21:09 IST

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Can we trust our cricketing heroes? We asked the cricket fans...

Can we trust our cricketing heroes? We asked the cricket fans...
Match fixing = 60:40 chance
Anything can be fixed today, leave alone a cricket match,"says film-maker Mahesh Bhatt. But can a match be fixed cent per cent? "It's not possible to fix a match completely since 11 players are involved,"says Prahlad Kakkar. "However, a 60:40 match-fixing ratio is quite possible.
Things like who will win the toss, the nature of the pitch, and injury can't be fixed because they're not in the players' control."Music composer Sanjay Raina feels, "While the involvement of a few can't be ruled out, 100% fixing isn't possible." TV commentator Charu Sharma, disagrees with the nomenclature 'match-fixing'.

His reasoning: "Is there a situation where everyone --the bowlers, batsmen and umpires --is involved? Yes, the odd individual can succumb to the lure of money."Yet, he concedes that though match-fixing is "extremely difficult,"it's not impossible.
Match fixing = Team work
According to TV anchor Mandira Bedi: "If all 11 players in a good team perform up to their potential, there is no reason for it to lose. It is pretty evident that there is corruption on the cricket ground."While the level of match-fixing is debatable, rigging the result of a match logically requires 'team work'. As novelist Shobhaa De says: "It takes all 11 players in a team to operate conclusively on the field."
Match fixing = India too
Are Indian cricketers involved in match-fixing? "What is it that others can do that we Indians can't? It's high time we got rid of this self-righteous image and accepted the truth,"says Bhatt. Raina argues that match-fixing has nothing to do with nationality. "Match-fixing happens in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia. There's no point denying that our cricketers do it."

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