While the scams continue, the game goes on..

On one side, the team owners are in a frenzy to pick the best of the players in the auctions and the players keen on getting the best offer while on the other side there is report after report coming out on the spot fixing and betting scandal which rocked the cricketing world last year.

The Mugdal committee report on the match/spot fixing and betting scandal during last’s year’s IPL clearly shows one thing- that there is involvement from every important component of the cricketing community, from the players to the owners to the team principals. The recently released report by the committee indicted Gurunath Meyyappan, former Principal of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the son-in-law of the Chairman of International Cricket Council for betting and leaking information on the team’s strategy and players. It also mentioned that six CSK players were involved in the cover up after the betting scandal released. Though the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) refused to name the six players without evidence, one thing is evident. There is all round involvement in the scam, be it betting, giving out information or covering it all up.

At almost the same time, former chairman of Indian Premier League (IPL), Lalit Modi use social media and interviews to state that the CSK team has breached the rules of the league and should therefore be terminated with immediate effect.

After these recent updates, few CSK fans have lashed out at the media and fellow friends about the unfairness of the report. They wanted an answer about the Rajastan Royals team and how the owner, Raj Kundra accepted to having placed bets during the matches. The magnitude of When the owner’s surrender and the prosecution of three players from the team for spot fixing did not result in the termination of the team, why should the CSK team be terminated for their “Principal’s” mistake is their argument.

There is no question that the Rajastan Royals (RR) are at fault here. But that does not make the crime of the CSK principal or the players or the middlemen involved any less harsh. The purity of the game was compromised long ago when the scam broke out. Now it is foolish to ague about who committed the lesser crime and concentrate on how to take this further and put an end to corruption in cricket.