IPL shames the Gentlemen’s game again

Cricket is said to be a gentlemen’s game. But as they say, excess of anything is bad and involvement of excessive money power in IPL has besmirched this gentlemen’s game time and again. The IPL is back in the headlines for blotting cricket as the CBI has busted two IPL betting rackets allegedly having links with Pakistan.

The CBI busts Pakistan linked IPL betting racket

The authorities have been keeping a close vigil on the mega Cricketing tournament, that is IPL, as clouds of betting always loom around it. For this very notorious reason, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered two separate cases involving IPL betting rackets that have alleged links with Pakistan. According to the agency officials, the case pertains to 2019 and the racket allegedly influenced the IPL 2019 matches at the wimps of their Pakistani masters. The agency’s statement read, “Reliable information has been received about a network of individuals involved in cricket betting influencing the outcome of Indian Premier League (IPL) matches based on inputs received from Pakistan.”

The report claims that the racket cheated the general public by “inducing them to bet”. They allegedly used “mule accounts” using multiple dates of birth and fake identities. This happened because corrupt bank officials connived with them and bypassed all the due diligence. The CBI officials claimed that the network also involved some government officials. Hence the CBI arrested unknown bank officials involved in the case.

Read More: Is IPL really worth watching?

The CBI has arrested a total of seven punters. The arrests were made from four different locations in Delhi, Hyderabad and Rajasthan. The CBI had booked four accused namely – Sajjan Singh, Prabhu Lal Meena, Ram Avtar and Amit Kumar Sharma, all arrested from Rajasthan and had been allegedly operating the betting racket since 2010. In the other betting network CBI arrested Gurram Vasu, Gurram Satish and Dilip Kumar. The accused in this case were allegedly in touch with a Pakistani national Waqas Malik. This network is said to be operating a betting network since 2013.

IPL: Betting accusations and detaching young champs from International cricket

As they say, there is no smoke without fire. The cloud of betting looms over IPL because of its past indulgence in these criminalities. In 2015, the Supreme Court appointed Lodha Committee had suspended two franchises’ teams – Chennai and Rajasthan for two years. The panel said that cricket’s spirit is larger than any person.

It also banned Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra from cricket for five years. Before that, the Delhi Police arrested S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila, Ankeet Chavan for spot-fixing allegations in which the Supreme Court found them guilty.

The humiliating loss of the Indian team in the last T20 world owes credit to the badly planned money driven cricket tournament, that is, IPL. While many nations’ cricketers stepped out from the tournament, Indian players like Hardik Pandya continued playing the IPL with serious injury concerns. This became the major reason for the dismal performance of the team and cost the nation the world cup.

While the IPL is a peak entertainment season for cricket fans, it has turned into a money minting machine for bookies and betting rackets. Behind all the charm and glow, the underbelly of IPL is full of such murk and shady activities. Hence, it is the responsibility of the BCCI to regulate it in a better way and remove the bottle-necks that are currently present in it and are maligning the tournament and Cricket as a whole. The nation bleeds blue (Indian Jersey is blue) and hence, the cricketers should not let their fans down and resist shortcuts like spot-fixing or betting as Cricket is more than a game for Indians, it has become a religion in itself.