First of all I wud like to clarify that this is a long and sensible post ...so if ur looking for quick comments....better not read it at all. Second...This is for people who r really passionate about cricket...so if ur not that kind then again don't read this at all. So here goes..... Now I know I have been taking this issue rather lightly at IGT but i always knew that much serious implications lie at the bottom of this issue.... Match fixing has been a part of Cricket for a long time...and only recently have there been some attempts at discovering if it is indeed true.... I must clarify here that I had always been a die hard cricket fan...that was until the match fixing scandal broke out...and suddenly all the close matches started making sense to me....hold on now..don't make any assumptions about me.. My speculation was further strengthened when I saw a guy make certain allegations on the ICC...the so called chief governing body of international cricket. That was a few days ago in talk show on NDTV...and what convinced me more was that he provided proof for his each and every allegation... Here r some of the allegations: 1. ICC is not an organization owned by shareholders or some governing body ...it is a "privately owned company" registered in UK. But no one knows who owns it OR who has stakes in it... 2. ICC does NOT operate from England (or for that matter from any cricketing country) as u might think...all the transactions, deals and lawsuits are under the jurisdiction of Court OF Monaco!!...Which has long been known to be a hangout of world's most nototrious mafias including Indian...not that it has any direct implications...just to mention.. 3. Currently...No one has an account of how much money goes into ICC or How much it spends on what...after 1998 there has been no audit for this "company".before which the company CA died 'accidently'...just to mention. 4. The transactions for the World Cup in India were done on an account which was opened by Mr. Dalmiya as a personal account and later converted to World cup accoun for which there is no account details nor is there any trace of that account now. The guy also went on to provide various account numbers on which ICC operates. Now this might seem like some fancy tale...so I decided to check it out myself. the stuff i was able to find on each alleagtion is like this... claim 1 ...on the ICC site itself it is mentioned that the commercial transactions and inquiries are to be made to "ICC Development(international) ltd." c/o ICC cricket management...when there's no such thing existing.(search for it) claim 2 ...absolutely correct...again on ICC site itself the contact address for the above company is of Monaco...this might seem very candid but what's the point? claim 3 ...I cudn't find anything about CA's death but it is true that there have been no audits. The only report, u can say, of the financial expenditure i was able to find was that for 2003-04..which mentioned that the annual 'turnover' for the company was measely $12 million!! for a company which gets $650 million in one contract from one company...that's pretty small.. also some of the 'annual reports' for previous years were only 4 pages long!!...which obviously had no mention of money.. claim 4 ...I don't know about Dalmiya's accoutn cause i ain't CBI...but one thing i came to know...there is no report for the 1999 world cup transactions/expenditure anywhere. Also I came to know about some great new stuff.... ICC got a contract of $ 650 million from GCC(Global Cricket Corporation) which is supposedly a newsgroup company....but... * It does not have a website! * GCC is not listed in any of NASDAQ, Newyork, Boston, London, Germany, UAE , Bombay, Australia stock exchanges...neither is it a registered company in any of these countries. Further...ICC has money from many countries including India...in it's 'saftey vault' which it refuses to pay cause the council agrees on keeping it.. no other reason... Now we know why the bans never hold long... Also a lot of player organisations have ended their relations with ICC since few years...which ICC says it ended itself....hmm So there... If anybody can offer me some explanations about any of these alleagations i'd be happy to confirm them... Peace.
LOE - as you said , this has been a major issue always hidden back stage and what we see on stage in the glamourous cricket game being played between the 2 countries. i was also pulled back after the hearing of match fixing scandals and hearing names of some legend involoved with this scams . as of now , i ve lost the passion and love for the game , even if i watch cricket i watch it juss for the sake of it , that inner passion is no more !!! anyways , pak played a wonderful innings against west indies giving them a lovely chase of 303 runs..
ok lets be frank here - it doesnt matter who holds a stake in the ICC... it could be the mafia, it could be president bush, it could be aliens.... but for a large body of the size of the ICC to actaully fix mathces and cover it up would require such a large effort and be so costly that it would take away all the moentary gains. there are just too many people involved in a match to effectviely 'fix' it so as to get the desiered outcome - tis possible to influence matches as seen by some recent cases in which individual players have been on the payroll of bookies... but it cannot exceed this proportion simply because tis too difficult.... Also, so many results wouldve been commercially 'bad' for the ICC- such as India losing anything - the BCCI is the richest cricketing body in the world because India is THE country for cricket.... theoretically, if matches were fixed - wouldt they 'fix' india to win all matches instead of fixing Australia which has a mere fraction of the viewership and revenu that india generats?? its all jsut practicalthinking - it doesnt make sense to fix something like this....
I'm not saying all the matches r fixed.....but some sure r....which does not make it any less of an issue.
agreed , how do a spectator know which match is fixed or not , end of the day all the scams have killed the passion for the game in you . you know what the funny part is , whenever any match ends ,there is always one person who would talk that the lossing side has taken money ... and this is the most common statement to be heard after each and everything , esp with matches related to india .. so if india wins , maybe they have bribed the other country to loose and if india loose they have taken something , :annoyed: after hearing all this , who would have that interest for the game .. few people who are seriously involved in these kinda scam are the main culprits to kill the passion for this beautiful game !!!
u r right it is too long...i hate reading bout cricket, writing bout cricket, or even watching cricket...i only like playing cricket... :dance:
