BOMBAY, 17 June 2005 — The perception of betting and match-fixing in cricket continues to hover between the myth and reality. Occasionally, when a bookmaker is arrested, a whole lot of speculative stories emerge, compromising once again the integrity of the game.

This happened once again the other day when a businessman, suspected to be a big time bookie, was interrogated by the police last week.

What had happened in the year 2000 was a big blow-up which had turned the entire cricketing world upside down. Several leading cricketers were alleged to have been involved in bog betting and match-fixing. It was left to former South African captain Hansie Cronje to make a self-confession of his being involved in betting and accepting money from bookies to help alter the outcome of a few matches.

Among the Indian players, Mohammed Azharuddin, also a former captain, figured prominently in the list of cricketers involved in shady deals. The big fall-out of the expose was that two Indian players, Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja, were banned from the game for life and others like Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar were suspended from playing for five years. The Pakistan Cricket Board imposed a similar life ban on former captain Salim Malik. It is a different matter that Australia treated the issue more lightly by merely fining three players, Mark Waugh, Shane Warne and Tim May, Australian dollars 10,000 each.

All this led to the International Cricket Council and the respective boards of most cricket-playing countries building strong fences to ward off this evil. Today the cricketers are watched closely and are prevented from interacting with strangers. There is a total ban on use of mobile phones once they enter the stadium.

In the last five years, the game appears to be free of any interference by bookmakers or their agents. That large-scale betting still goes on is a different matter altogether and is completely outside the control of the cricket administration unless the players themselves are suspected to be involved.

An unnecessary furor was thus created when a leading bookmaker of Bombay was arrested and interrogated. The police said that he had spilled the beans. One expected sensational disclosures. But what turned out to be ultimately was revelation of the same names who had hit the headlines five years ago.

Should one call it a height of ignorance, or an exercise in gaining some easy publicity when a Deputy Commissioner of Police of Ahmedabad announced the names of players who were already punished in the year 2000, after the big blow-up. It was all an old hat, as the Ahmedabad police officer said that the bookie had revealed the names of Azharuddin, Jadeja, Nayan Mongia and foreign players, Hansie Cronje and Mark Waugh as being his contacts amongst players.

While Cronje is dead and gone, one fails to understand how the other players named come into significance now. It is obvious that the bookie concerned is just trotting out old names who were found to be involved in betting and match-fixing from 1997 to 2000. This is totally irrelevant today. As an afterthought, the same officer said that not a single present-day player’s name was ever mentioned.

The police ought to have sifted the information that they had gathered before announcing the names. Since these were all old names of players who have already been found guilty and punished, it created quite a bit of stir. The media after blowing this police statement out of all proportion, realized that it was no great news at all but just old dog with a new collar.

The fact remains that after the stringent steps taken by cricket administrators everywhere and with the co-operation from the law-enforcing agencies, the game has been made absolutely clean. No players can ever risk getting even remotely involved with those who bet on international matches. And talking of betting, it is a worldwide phenomenon and far beyond the purview of the ICC or any of its units.