You, dear reader, shall now enjoy the unique privilege of reading revelations about the match-fixing episode that have…, well, not been revealed before. We place before you a secret that will shake the very foundations of Indian cricket. Our information, as always, is credible, well researched. It's sourced from the cousin of our peon who overheard his neighbour saying that the owner of the Dachshund that sniffed at the butt of his (the neighbour's) Pekinese bitch had said that a drunk at a pub had sworn that he had been told by a lip-reader that she had seen two prominent cricketers spilling the beans at a popular café. The scoop being? you ask. That former journeymen cricketers have banded together, not for playing veterans matches (which Mohinder Amarnath claims are also fixed), and formed a consortium of leakers. If that sounds a group with prostrate problems, think again. This squad will regularly link major international stars to the match-fixing scandal for a fair price - Rs I crore a pop.
Startled? Don't be. we are in no way imputing that Manoj Prabhakar was paid to state that Kapil Dev tried to bribe him to throw a match against Pakistan in 1994. On the other hand, this particular XI is imbued with an ever-loving entrepreneurial spirit well in consonance with the dawning of the dotcom age.
After all, all major newspapers, tabloids and the grosses of cricket websites that populate cyberspace, are desperate for a new spin on this spectacle. So surely they can spare some money to get the cricketers to talk; basically but the money where their mouths are. And, thereafter, they are deluged with readers clamouring for more on How The Game Of Glorious Uncertainties Ain't; and more copies of dailies get snapped up, and the hits on the sites mount. Most of the news is gossip, unsubstantiated rumours. But, hey, as they say, if you don't speculate, you don't accumulate.
So what of Kapil Dev? "No comment," sez he, leaving the matter to his lawyers after having shed tears enough on camera on an earlier occasion. But it does brew some interesting questions?
Was India's win in the 1983 World Cup fixed?
Was Malcolm Nash paid to let Gary Sobers clobber six sixes off one over?
Was Don Bradman bribed to score a duck in his last Test innings?
Was….? Suspect everything, that's the new credo.
Nah, you would say, this is a modern phenomenon. Really? Here's the lowdown. The first uproar over match fixing happened in 1817. A British stalwart William Lambert was accused of having taken money to throw a welter of matches, especially in single-wicket tourneys. Lambert was banned for life and bookies eliminated from Lord's. it took them 160 years to stage a comeback, as they did in 1977.
So are all these questions so questionable? Especially if you can make up your own answers as seems the trend.
History may be bunk and Bunky may be history but is this hysteria all bunkum. Who knows? Who cares? Don't watch this space.