International Cricket Council

The time has indeed come for ICC to clean the house and set things in order, as the kind of controversies that cricket is experiencing for last few years has not been experienced in any other sports. One often wonders whether it is the advent of the Asian authorities who started running the game of cricket that also became the trigger for injection of corruption in the game of cricket. If one scans though the list of the disgraced cricketers who have acquired infamy for their attempts at match fixing of cricket matches, the list would be dominated by the cricketers of Asian origin, in particular India and Pakistan, and surprisingly enough not Sri Lanka.

While it may be a harsh surmise, hushed-hushed tones echo with such sentiments around the cricketing world. When one talks of temptation from money that has come into game, one also need to undertake a comparative study with other sporting events, where the quotient of money is much higher than what is there in cricket. There seldom has been a reference about match fixing or any such thing, and could it be that the state of affairs is still in European hands and they run the shows with professional integrity. Can the same be said about the manner in which sports administration is run in India or in Pakistan? Not likely, as it involves quite a lot of Machiavellian tactics. No wonder, when former Australian premier lost out in election to become President of ICC to Sharad Pawar, he had obliquely hinted to this premise.

Tom Alter, the quintessential English man of Hindi cinema has taken upon himself to clean sports and he has floated a body – Clean Sports India to do so. May be the time has come for all the sports loving fans of the country to strengthen the hands of Tom Alter so that sports in India gets a new lease of life, that is honest and based on integrity. Once the administration becomes open, responsive and vigilant the whiff of corruption would automatically die natural death. The moot point is would it happen. Supreme Court of India has already taken a strand in the stand-off associated with Hockey association and has been candid enough to advise the people at the helm of affairs to look after the game and not their interests. Time has come for the fans to take the call.

By: Suman Rai

Tags: Clean Sports India, Cricket, ICC, India, International Cricket Council, Pakistan, Sports, Sri Lanka, Tom Alter