There are black sheep who must be punished: Dalmiya

Even as the seesaw battle between officials, players and politicians continues to hog the headlines in the match fixing scandal, three prominent names surfaced on Sunday. The first was former ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya, the other was Minister of State for Sports Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and the third was former Indian wicket-keeper Syed Kirmani.

In an interview to a website, Dalmiya said about 10 to 15 percent of the players are involved in match-fixing. But he felt the root cause of the problem were the bookies. The former ICC president said "In my opinion 10 to 15 per cent of the blame should go to the players and the rest to bookies." He added "Let me tell you bookies are the root cause of the problem."

When asked whether he favoured a King Commission type of inquiry in India, Dalmiya said the government and the Central Bureau of Investigation should decide on it. He however said "In hindsight, it appears that instead of the Chandrachud commission, we should have approached the government to institute a CBI inquiry."

Asked whether he knew players were accepting money to throw matches, Dalmiya said ``maybe only once during an India-West Indies one-day international in October 1994. Manoj Prabhakar and Nayan Mongia batted slowly and were dropped but returned after tendering an unqualified apology. Maybe I was too naive but except on that occasion, it never occurred to me that matches were actually being fixed."

Asked if Wadekar had informed the board about Prabhakar naming Kapil Dev of the alleged bribe offer, the chairman of the Asian Cricket Foundation said "in 1997 itself, Wadekar had written two letters to the Board saying Prabhakar had not mentioned any names."

Dalmiya was candid in admitting that the game has suffered. He said "There are definitely some black sheep who must be identified and punished. An impression has gained that cricket is played for the sake of bookies - one of the worst things to happen." He added "when I took over, we went ahead with globalisation, which had a dark side. But we never anticipated a crisis of this magnitude. I thought the Christchurch code of conduct commission was enough. But it was not."

Meanwhile, Indian Minister of State for Sports SS Hussain stood firm on his stand and ruled out the possibility of granting pardon to match-fixers. Going a step further, he said they should be punished like war criminals as it concerned large number of fans and the image and dignity of the country.

Asked about the progress made by the CBI probe, Hussain said things were moving along satisfactorily and they were working faster than the King Commission in the matter. "No action can be taken against anybody before the filing of a charge-sheet by the agency" he said, adding "No one can be hanged on the basis of suspicion alone.'' The minister said he could not say more about the progress of the probe. He however said "Let the law take its own course, everything will be crystal clear in the matter."

Making probably his first comments on the issue, former Indian wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani said the probe into match-fixing was taking too long. Kirmani said "They should see that the entire muck is cleaned, the sooner, the better." Kirmani, India's most successful wicketkeeper, who was in Kochi to release a cricket tournament logo, said "In our days, we played for the love of the game, not looking at any other aspect. Now so much money is involved, so the approach and attitude have changed."

Sensing potential success in dramatising the scandal, people who are relatively little known have surfaced from seemingly nowhere to capitalise on it. Aldrin Naidu, an Indian playwright of South African origin, is scripting a play which centres on irregularities and corruption in the game. With the play titled `Vak-Hansie', Naidu is likely to approach Cronje to play the lead role in it. The title means holidaying in Afrikaans, but it could also be easily misconstrued by many through its pronounciation as being dismissive of Cronje. `Vak- Hansie' will lampoon the world, or rather the underworld of cricket, according to Naidu. As a quote on 'Vacation' by Glenn Stewart says "The longing to get away from it all never was so great as in our present time of tension and trouble. We want something to lift us out of the mess into which much of life seems to have fallen."