03 September,2010 07:38 AM IST | | Ayaz Menon
This inquiry had followed the 'confessions' of Shane Warne and Tim May that they had been offered money by the then Pakistan skipper Salim Malik to bowl badly and allow Pakistan to win a Test during the 1996 series. (Incidentally, Warne, who has asked for life bans on Butt, Asif and Amir had, along with Mark Waugh, taken money from bookies in 1994-95 in Sri Lanka for giving them 'advice'.)
Remember, this 1998 inquisition precedes the match-fixing scam which burst into public gaze after Hansie Cronje had been tracked dealing with a bookie by the Delhi police in early 2000. The disgraced South African skipper had named Malik (among others) who had introduced him to bookmakers, so much of what appears in these depositions tallies substantially with what Cronje had to say about Malik.
That however, is not germane to the issue at this point in time. What baffles - and in a depressing sort of way also affirms why things have come to such a sorry pass in pakistan cricket - is the number ofu00a0 highly 'influential' players who stand indicted by their colleagues and countrymen, as also the utterly lackadaisical response of the cricket authorities and the government to address this grave threat.
There are warnings and pleas aplenty by those making the depositions about where Pakistan cricket was headed even 15 years ago. Several specific examples of fixing are cited. Indeed, some of the deponents are virtually beseeching authority to step in urgently to stem the rot. That some of these worthies answer to the names of Intikhab Alam, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad and Rameez Raja is perhaps testimony to the extent to which the corruption had spread. If even they failed to provoke the authorities into taking swift and decisive action, who could succeed?
It has hardly helped Pakistan cricket that the establishment itself has been heavily politicised. The PCB is almost directly linked to the presidency as the person holding this office is the patron of the cricket board. In that sense, cricket in Pakistan, unlike say in India, Australia, England, New Zealand etc comes under government purview -- indirectly, yet emphatically.
Consequently, every successive president of the country has had his/her representative as the PCB boss, leading to frequent sweeping changes in selectors, captains, players and one dare say, findings of inquiry committees looking into matters of corruption. Because of this nexus, government accountability in Pakistan in cricketing matters cannot be diminished as it would in some other countries.u00a0
It is perhaps far-fetched that PCB and/or government officials have been complicit in this corruption as some critics have said in the aftermath of the recent fixing row. But there is little doubt that the apathy of the PCB - and by extension the government - has created an environment in which bookies have flourished and players have been exposed, if not thrust, into crooked ways. Most times, authority has preferred to look the other way.
What emerges from these transcripts is that the Pakistan dressing room has been a house divided for a long, long time now, and largely on issues of corruption which has led to such massive mutual mistrust that rival factions have not stopped at anything to ruin the other. Indeed, it seems that shenanigans were committed with such impunity that other players, more particularly newcomers, were at peril - for a place in the team if not something more serious - if they did not conform.
Timely intervention by a more determined Pakistan Cricket Board could have prevented the problem from becoming so widespread. But if most factions of society, from the top political office down, are self-obsessively driven towards acquiring power and pelf, it is hardly likely that cricketers will be exempt.u00a0 When such culture gets institutionalized, fear of wrongdoing is replaced by the fear of necessity.
Not much of what is mentioned in the affidavits reproduced here, or indeed perhaps even what has been exposed by the recent News of The World Sting, may stand scrutiny in a court of law. But that is unlikely now to convince anybody that corruption has not played a rather big part in modern cricket.
The silver lining in this episode is that cricket now has an opportunity to purge itself from this disease. And it is not only Pakistan players and officials who must bear this cross. That is being both supercilious and na ve. Symptoms of such corruption have been evidenced in every cricket playing country. Each one is warned.
