No more Sreesanths please!

I remember the time in late 1999/early 2000 when the match fixing news about the involvement of top Indian players viz. Md. Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and others had surfaced. The fans were angry – very angry. There was a lot of cynicism about the game and every close finish was scrutinized keenly by the fans. The fans had a common thought process about every match in which India snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The answer was simple – it is a fixed match.

Then came along the, now highly decorated, Indian team of the 2000s. Sourav Ganguly was elected captain of a team that had virtuous players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Javagal Srinath etc. Ganguly and Dravid were relative new comers having debuted 4 years ago. There was a lot of young talent like Sehwag, Zaheer, Yuvraj and Kaif that were being drafted into the team. It is now that the Indian team played some of its best cricket. The point is that this team was as vulnerable to the lure of easy money as any other team. Product endorsements by cricketers had just started and by any means the money in cricket was not as much as it is today. However, these were good men.

The advent of this team meant that we again did what we do really well – forget. We shoved the doubts under the pillow and enjoyed the success. Most importantly the Indian team could once again lose a close match without its integrity being questioned. And that is the way it should be, isn’t it. You win some and you lose some. For close to a decade, the ugly saga of match fixing did not fully rear its head. Yes there were the odd incidents that happened, but the Indian cricket remained largely unscathed.

It was now time for cricket to take on a hip hop avatar after remaining classical and semi-classical since its inception. T20 cricket and IPL had burst onto the scene. For IPL it was pretty much a case of veni, vidi, vici. The success of the format was that it resonated not only with the fast food generation but also managed to woo the mothers, mother-in-laws, aunts and sisters. It did well as there was instant gratification – something we are so used to these days. This meant that there were also opportunities – good and bad. While IPL giving a great platform to the young Indian players has been well documented, what it did was that it also brought instant stardom to players, hitherto, unheard of. Paul Valthaty, Swapnil Asnodkar etc became famous. With so much money being pumped into the tournament, the focus almost entirely shifted to the economics of the game. In the bargain, the sport took a backseat. Yes there were good cricket matches but the ethics part of it slipped under the scanner.

So, what is it about young Indian cricketers that make them susceptible to the virus of fixing matches? In a fascinating address to young management students, Harsha Bhogle had spoken about talent and attitude. We are country that place talent on the highest podium – as we should. However, what we achieve in talent, we squander in our attitude. This is true not only for sport but in all other aspects as well. Attitude translates into performance – a known fact. What we fail to understand is that in a media savvy sport like cricket, it is imperative to hold on to that attitude even off field. It is important to have the right kind of heroes to look upto and borrow from. This begs the question that whether the captain or a leader of a team looks after his protégés even off field or does his role begin and end when the team enters and leaves the park? Indian cricket is at a cross road now. It must protect its young talents like Sanju Samson and Karan Sharma. Let them play cricket and facilitate all the arrangements to instill the right kind of attitude in them. While it is true that fixing matches is largely an individual decision, can systems be put in place to try to prevent cricketers from going down that road.

Else, we will have many more Santhakumaran Sreesanths – prodigious talent lost to bad attitude!