Innocence Has Met Its Match in Cricket Scandal

Imagine a scandal in which the biggest games in U.S. sports--the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA playoffs--turned out to be fixed, their drama as puffed and empty as a professional wrestling match.

Such is the scandal now enveloping professional cricket in India.

In recent weeks, allegations of match-fixing and bribe-taking involving the country’s biggest stars have plunged the sport here into its worst crisis since the quirky English game took root in India more than 200 years ago.

The scandal has lifted a curtain on the sleazy underworld of bookmakers and mafia dons who handle the millions of dollars bet on the games. Some cricket officials say as many as half the national team’s matches are rigged. The affair has sucked in not just India but stars and teams across the world of international cricket.

“What these guys did is tantamount to treason,” said Bishan Singh Bedi, a former bowler for the national team who now coaches young cricketers. “They haven’t just betrayed the sport, they’ve betrayed the nation.”

The scandal has stripped away the aura of innocence that still hung about India’s professional cricket players--long seen by many of their countrymen as standing above the corruption and venality of the nation’s politicians. No sport in India rivals cricket in popularity and glamour. From Kerala to Kashmir, every empty field doubles as a cricket pitch. The stars of the national team, such as the great batsman Sachin Tendulkar, appear on billboards and TV screens hawking watches, cars and soft drinks.

But as the scandal has unfolded, Indians’ love for the game has given way to an equally impassioned anger and cynicism. The allegations have dominated the country’s newspapers and TV shows for weeks. The newsmagazine India Today recently ran a cover story titled “Shame on the Game.”

Indian police came upon the scandal almost by accident. In March, they were tapping the phones of several men who they believed were trying to extort money from a New Delhi businessman. One of the conversations they picked up allegedly involved two men discussing the fixing of a match between India and South Africa.

Then the stunner: One of the tapped phones, a cellular, apparently wound up in the hands of Hansie Cronje, the captain of the South African team, which was in India for the upcoming match. And a subsequent conversation, caught on tape, seemed to show Cronje and an Indian bookie discussing the rigging of the match--and payments by the bookie to Cronje and other South African players.

Cronje, a hero in his country, initially denied any wrongdoing but was kicked off the national team after acknowledging that he had not been honest with the South African cricket board about his activities in India. Two Indian men were arrested and charged with match-fixing.

The Cronje affair loosed a flood of allegations against Indian cricketers. By far the most spectacular involve Kapil Dev, an icon of Indian cricket and the captain of the national team when it won the World Cup in 1983. He is also the national team’s coach.

His main accuser is a former teammate, Manoj Prabhakar. Now retired from cricket, Prabhakar says that in 1994, Dev offered him $60,000 to play badly in a match against archrival Pakistan. He says he refused the bribe. The match was rained out.

Prabhakar’s accusation has caused a sensation throughout India. In an interview with the BBC, Dev sobbed uncontrollably, saying that his long career in cricket had been ruined by a single accusation.

“Somebody spoiled my life,” Dev whimpered, wiping his eyes.

Initially, the public sided with Dev, who appears several times nightly on a nationally broadcast commercial for men’s suits.

Many fans assumed that Prabhakar held a grudge--he is not as charming as Dev and for years languished in the better player’s shadow. Since Dev’s performance in the BBC interview, however, public opinion has begun to shift. New allegations are pouring in, and Prabhakar is sticking to his story.

As federal authorities sift through evidence, some cricket officials are calling for the formation of a commissioner-led system that would be similar to those that govern professional sports in the U.S.

In the meantime, the scandal seems to be corroding the faith of the sport’s future stars. At a camp in New Delhi for the country’s best young players, many said their faith in their former heroes had been shattered.

“All these players,” said Ankur Julka, a 13-year-old aspiring bowler, “they are not playing for the country, they are playing for money.”