Less shock, more sense: The fix cricket really needs

Fact: You cannot break what has not been fixed. Call it the credibility or, more grandiosely, the sanctity of cricket. It was never quite cleansed from the taint of corruption that inevitably takes the game to the dark side and leaves the faithful with little to defend. Shock, therefore, went off the table a long time ago. One is hurt and disappointed by the cheapening and undermining of an interesting, even exciting, edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) by yet more ugliness. But do I find the revelations of spot-fixing sensational and mind-boggling? No. That ship had sailed over a decade back with the fixing scandal that emerged in the late 90s. Each subsequent incident has only further sharpened that oft-used barb that makes cricket lovers cringe and blush when casually bandied by miffed spectators: Arrey, match banaaya hua hai. [caption id=“attachment_788947” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  S Sreesanth was an ideal target for bookies. BCCI[/caption] The mood of the minute suggests one bursts with fury but I, unfortunately, don’t have any dynamite sticks to explode. Been there, seen that, want this fixed (er, or not). But much as I’d like to see the guilty punished and the system restored, it cannot be at the expense of logic. For instance: It’s too easy to blame the IPL: Not only is it inaccurate, it is also hypocritical to attribute all the corruption in sport to the IPL. The previous spot-fixing incidents, such as the one involving Mohammed Amir, Mohammed Asif and Salman Butt during the 2010 series between England and Pakistan, have occurred during regular international fixtures. More importantly, fixing and betting have been constant companions of the sport way before the IPL was even conceived. I am not a great proponent of the league but I refuse to get carried away with the IPL-driven commerce and corruption connection that is bound to be discussed in the media, particularly the English. Take this recent tweet from former England captain Michael Vaughan: “Spot fixing in the IPL…. Not the most surprising News I have heard today…” The tournament has grappled with a never-ending string of problems since its inception. It has managed to handle most but struggled with the perception battle that it seems destined never to win. This is just the kind of setback that the IPL did not need but I don’t believe that it had a hand in creating it. Graft is deeply-rooted in sport, not just cricket, and needs a much-wider cleansing process than blaming it on the IPL. Sreesanth, a problem within a problem: The angry, bewildered face of the Indian pacer is a perfect fit for the posterboy of any scandal. His alleged involvement thus becomes a convenient truth – the talent-gone-wrong slips yet again. Look, he has been a loose cannon for a long time now. As is usual in Indian sport, he was a boy wonder till he wasn’t. And then, as he fell into oblivion, he also seemed to fall into a spiral of errant behaviour and craziness that appeared, in part, a cry for help. I don’t know if Sreesanth, a clear candidate for therapy and counselling, was ever given that assistance but this is a fall from grace that he is unlikely to recover from. This deteriorating cricketer was an easy target for the betting syndicates. It is the player’s choice to succumb or not and here was one with no visible proof of resolve. Shashi Tharoor, a senior Congress leader from his home state, Kerala, might proclaim that the bowler is innocent until proven guilty but the verdict in court is irrelevant. Until the hacks have bigger fish to fry, he will remain the most saleable face of this controversy. I hope that doesn’t stop someone from scratching the surface. But beyond the specifics of the immediate incident, here’s the thing I fear the most. The high-involvement nature of the sport in India begets a variety of extreme reaction. Outrage and cynicism are the two most popular sentiments post the ‘breaking’ of such controversies. People express shock, sanctimony and poor humour. Some even revel in the drama of it all. The issue is brought to our living rooms in simplistic motherhood questions and answers that are punctuated with the right degree of judgment and provocation. Sense becomes a nuisance as we scramble to find that fall guy who will become the face of the scandal. Noise has a way of cloaking the real problem and cricket deserves better. The author writes on popular culture, cricket and whatever else takes her fancy. She tweets @abbykhaitan.