The so-called betting scams, match-fixing and other scandals dogging world cricket have attracted much attention over the last couple of years, but lately, due to the fact that it has been found that there is either no evidence to support match-fixing allegations made my Indian gambling merchants, or that the allegations were simply frivolous, the furore has died down and in fact you rarely hear of it, down here in Australia at least. I don’t know what the situation is in India, but I imagine since that has been the source of the most destructive force to hit cricket throughout its history, there is probably a fair bit more discussion, especially given that Indians have such a love for the game.
I think, however, that there is nothing more to prove, and that anti-corruption officials are now practically chasing ghosts, to all intents and purposes. No fresh leads have come to light, and the seedy underworld of indian betting rings has been exposed as fraudulent and misleading. Much of the blame for this tarnishing of our great game has to fall on this unscrupulous industry, especially when you take into account that by far, players accused(and in some cases found guilty) of taking money to play poorly or otherwise rig the game have been from the subcontinent.
Obviously, the pressure on those players would have been far greater than on those from other countries, but it does not bring indian cricket into a good light. The fact that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh took money for telling’John’ about pitch conditions has been mangled out of all proportion, and it has been forgotten that their actions were much more innocuous in comparison with those taken out by Salim Malik, Azharuddin and others. The furore over Hanse Cronje has long been forgotten, and it must now be acknowledged that this seedy moment in world cricket is now a thing of the past, and the game can now only learn from it, and ensure that there are safeguards in place to ensure it does not ever happen again.
It must also ensure that there is a systematic approach to dealing with such allegations, instead of the rabid-wolf style which ensued in the last instance. The media, the courts and the ICC were all over players who in the end, were merely innocent victims of baseless accusations. Alec Stewart, Mark Waugh and Shane Waugh come to mind, and I know there are several others I do not know off the top of my head. By having some sort of logical, coherent system in place to deal with any further scam allegations, much of the mud-slinging, implicit racism and allegations of racism where none existed can be avoided.