Spot-Fixing Scandal Should Not be Swept Under the Carpet – Rahul Dravid
Some of the leading cricketers and administrators of the game have urged the governing body of cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC), to clamp down on everyone involved in the match-fixing and spot-fixing allegations that have been levelled against Pakistani players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir.
In the last few days, reactions from some of the leading names in Indian cricket have been coming in thick and fast, and these include three legends of the game Sachin Tendulkar, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Rahul-c83321 Dravid.
Tendulkar, who was admitted in the Indian Air Force as an Honorary Group Captain on Friday, came up with the astonishing claim that no Indian cricketer was approached with match-fixing allegations in his 21-year international career.
The little maestro, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, shocked the cricketing world with his statement, conveniently forgetting that his former captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Azharuddin-c76823, with whom he played for more than a decade, was banned for life for his alleged involvement in match and spot-fixing, while one of his best friends Ajay Jadeja was also slapped with a ban for five years for his role in the ruckus when the ICC came down hard on the corrupt players at the start of the current decade.
Perhaps the toil of the last two decades and the physical exertion of scoring one hundred after another have taken their toll on the little champion from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820, badly damaging his memory!
Another former Indian great, Kapil Dev, who made a laughing stock of himself after letting his emotions take the better of him in a TV show during the match-fixing controversy, jumped on the bandwagon, claiming that the guilty players should be taken to task, after barely surviving the scandal that reduced him to tears after he was questioned for his alleged involvement.
Another champion from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750, Rahul Dravid, called “The Wall”, has also spoken of cleansing the game and its tarnished image. The batting maestro, with an average in access of 50 runs per innings in Test cricket, has sounded the sanest, stressing that the ICC needs to step in to cleanse the game at its earliest.
"The last thing we need is for the events of this week to be swept under the carpet. No guilt must be attached until the investigations are complete, and everyone deserves a fair chance to defend themselves. But the process must be thorough and comprehensive."
Dravid added that he wanted the investigation of the anti-corruption unit to be completed before the matter moved on to, "a proper inquiry carried out by investigators with the law of the land behind them."
The Bangalore batsman, who believes he has at least three years of cricket left in him, added that the focus of the ICC needs to be on digging deep and exploring where the menace stems from and how it can be nipped in the bud to help save the reputation of the game.
The right-hander feels that the most necessary outcome of the entire episode, "which has been a horrible scar on cricket, cricketers and fans," would be "swift and strong punishment to anyone found guilty."
The last few days has seen the International Cricket Council take some stringent measures and suspend the trio, and as a result, Mohammad Amir has been excluded from the list of ICC’s Emerging Player of the Year award. The left-arm fast bowler was one of the favourites for the award. Asif, who was a contender for the Test Player of the Year award, has also seen his name stripped from the list.
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