In India, cricket
has been followed as a religion over the last two to three decades. We are a
country of more than 1.2 billion people cheering for the Indian Cricket Team
and thus we can sense the euphoria and madness the game of cricket generates in
India.
In 2008, when
Lalit K. Modi launched the first edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) and
invited the top notch business tycoons and film stars in India to invest money
into it, some critics or we can say cricket enthusiasts had a serious question
in their minds, Is the money and glamour going to dampen the true spirit of
cricket? Is materialism going to affect the integrity of the players? Well six
years later we are in a better position to that say those questions were
atleast genuine and have now posed a serious threat to the gentleman's
game.
The recent spot
fixing scandal in this year's IPL has thrown the spotlight onto the ugly truth
behind all the extravaganza. The incident has indeed proved that the desire to
earn quick money and materialism has affected the integrity and loyalty of the
players. Fans are hugely disappointed as they feel cheated by the game they follow so closely. Spot
fixing has been coming on from ages right from the period of Hansie Cronje to
Mohammand Azharuddin to Ajay Jadeja. It is an undeniable fact that money has
been tainting the spirit of cricket time and again. But this recent incident in
IPL,reports suggest that even a few franchise owners are involved in betting
and spot fixing.
This case was
refereed to the Supreme court to ban IPL, but even the supreme court denied to
ban the league and said in it's statement that it was BCCI's duty to frame
tougher laws and take strict actions against such acts of disgrace to the game.
Though debates
are still on, and so are the cases against the players, but I feel that simply
banning the IPL is not a sensible solution to this as that would be the loss of
cricket to materialism. Instead the cricketing authorities should deal with
them strictly and frame tougher laws to stop betting, spot fixing and other
such acts that taint the gentleman's game.
