The board and the banning

AFTER A BRIEF bout of indecision, the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) has handed out stiff punishments for those cricketers found guilty of either match-fixing or having a ``nexus'' with bookmakers. As anticipated in many quarters, former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin (along with Ajay Sharma) has been served with a lifetime ban. Not altogether surprising either, others such as Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar, who were charged with the lesser offence of associating with bookmakers, have been debarred from playing cricket for five years. In line with the Madhavan report, which found no evidence which implicates Nayan Mongia and groundsman Ram Adhar, the disciplinary committee of the BCCI has exonerated them.

Given that the BCCI was under great pressure from the Union Government and a betrayed cricket-loving public to act against the erring players, the punishments served on them are likely to receive a broad welcome. How suitable or appropriate are the punishments? While addressing this question, it is important to keep in mind that the sentences were handed out following a CBI investigation, which specifically claimed there was a lack of evidence to take legal action against the cricketers. However convinced one personally is of the guilt of the accused cricketers, a lifetime ban is a pretty strong measure for being found guilty of ``misconduct'' by a probe (the Madhavan report) of the equivalent status of a departmental inquiry.

At one level, of course, the sentences have no practical penal value for most of the cricketers. Both Ajay Sharma and Manoj Prabhakar have retired from cricket long ago and the ban has no bearing on their cricketing futures. Even the severity of the lifetime ban on Mohammed Azharuddin is moderated by the fact that he is all of 38 years old and in the twilight of his cricketing career. In a way, the only person who is really affected in an immediate way is Ajay Jadeja: the five-year ban slapped on him virtually rules out his return to the game. In appealing against the BCCI verdict, Jadeja will be attempting to secure his future while the other cricketers will be trying to reclaim their past.

With the punishing of the cricketers, one chapter on the cricket match-fixing drama has come to a close. But as the Union Minister of Sports, Ms. Uma Bharati, has suggested, there are issues relating to corruption and cricket that are still unresolved. Penalising a few cricketers may deter other young cricketers from engaging in abhorrent practices such as match-fixing but this phenomenon demands to be probed a lot more deeply than it has been. As the CBI itself has suggested, cricketers were only one part of a complex network which comprised bookmakers, betting syndicates and the mafia. The investigating agency has not ruled out a further investigation on this dangerous aspect of the match-fixing phenomenon. The CBI report on match-fixing also highlighted the negligence of the BCCI in dealing with the malaise. One result of this has been that the Union Government has taken an interest in questions of whether the Board should be reformed and how a measure of much-needed transparency should be brought into its functioning. The CBI's chargesheets in the cricket telecast cases and its remarks on the cricket administration suggest that the corruption problem will not be dealt with sufficiently if it stops with punishing a few cricketers.

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Section  : Opinion
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