"No point cancelling the tournament" screamed a headline in one of the popular cricket website. This of course after fresh arrests made by the police on May 24. This time reaching the upper echelon of the IPL masterminds and managers.
For those who dont know, IPL stands for India Premier League. It is a professional organization in the world of Cricket. For those living in Europe you can think of it as the FA cup and for those living in North America, it is somewhat similar to the NHL or MLB. It involves huge amounts of money and huge contracts for the players. More importantly, it also invites the attraction of gamblers. These gamblers are putting millions of dollars worth of bets on various facets of the game eg runs being scored, who scores them, who does not score, including the results of the game. The gamblers are willing to go the distance and pay money to players for not performing in certain segments of the game. In other words they, and they includes both the gamblers and the players, cheat.
There have been numerous instances of cheating which have been rumored (yet remains unproven) and also instances where the proof was so enormous that the players and now officials of the game, have been arrested.
These cricketers have actually robbed the fans of their love of the game. Now ever time that a catch gets dropped, or someone gets out in what appears to be a soft dismissal or other things like that happens, the fans remain unsure whether it is a simple (un)lucky event or are there bigger principles at play here.
Cricket has been around for over 100 years. It has survived many ups and downs, changes in the culture, expansion into different corners of the world, the pace of life. Yet this is one body blow that may rob it of its fan base, if it goes uncorrected.
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