Fake Cricket: Kenya's Heroic Defeat

 Dr. Abdul Ruff

ONE

Joint cricket exercises have made the cricket teams very ordinary and average today. One of the insignificant teams, Kenya knew it could not defeat New Zealand, a below average team.

It has been a practice to take special care of aid givers in sports. Pakistan underpays with England while Bangladesh with India which gives them some tractors. .

In fact there is not cricketers who can score 100 plus without a helping hand of fellow batboys and opponent bowlers and fielders. Legends are created for some purposes but in sports there is an extra reason.

Kenyans are not so naive as not to know the tactic significance of bowling first after winning the toss- they know. If Kenya also had offered 400 plus to New Zealanders - which they most probably expected - they too would have got some good runs upto 200 plus and at least one of them even would have got 100 plus or at least 50 pus as per the usual cricket conventions of mutual match fixing. That the mutual fixing. This logic worked between Pakistan and England and Bangladesh and India and, earlier, between Pakistan and New Zealand. India got two 100 pus (Shevag and Kohli) but in return Bangladesh got two 50 plus. Pakistan has provided 300 plus and lost the match.

Generally, toss is sought after only to bat first and place a total for the other team to chase down or collapse. That is real challenge. If a team choose to bowl after winning the toss, it signals an earlier agreement or fixing that only a particular team ( here India and England) Once a decision is already taken before the toss which team must bat first, toss is irrelevant because no mater who wins the toss, the winner of the toss declares accordingly ; if  that tea is supposed to bat the skipper would choose to bat, if on the contrary, if the other team is to bat first he wold say they would bowl first, knowing that that is ridiculous announcement.

TWO

India is trying its best to make cricket the only sport and Tendulkar only Indian. Today the crudest funny phenomenon in cricket is Indian industrialists, top politicians mafias control it by bring other teams and the related people. As a pet keep of USA-UK terror twins and an emerging terror partner in Afghanistan and elsewhere, India has also acquired the rights to  control as many domains as others allow.

India is using both IPL black cash engaged and Tendullkar retirement as a gimmicks to win the cup. But  when India wants anything any route is OK; any method is OK; any bribery is OK. . .

Bangladesh is the Asian champions, may because the effort of cricket world to make Afghanistan the Asian champions failed and BD emerged victorious. BD had also won the WC in 2007. India is keen to deny BD a repeat of the win over India in the 2007 edition in the Caribbean. Both Pakistani and Bangladeshi teams chose to bowl first after winning the tough toss and logic seems to be very simple - just to lose the match and let the opponent win for some specific reasons. In a fitting way to hitting hypocritical Pakistani and Bangladeshi drama masters-cricketers who showed their color in electing to bowl in stead of batting, Kenya, a weak team decided to use their toss in a positive manner they won by electing to bat first and lose it  honorably.

It seems, India, even if it were not prefixed before the match, had expected 400 plus and Shewag was being offered 100 plus and was fast moving toward 200 as a BD special consideration after throwing out poor Sachin Tendulkar very early. India media, dejected on account of unfabulous shots, would not promote Shewag or the Bharat Ratna, even if they want for the fact that he let the bowler's ball scatter his stumps all along the route from BD Mirpur to New Delhi,  this is unacceptable to national award committee and does to entitle the rank. The too generous Bangladeshis seemed to be eager to offer  Shewag 200 plus but he squandered  his own fate. Perhaps, he did not want to go too far. The financers of Mumbai can spend any amount to get Sachin what they want.

Whether or not their actions were predetermined by the India-ICC, Bangladesh boys enjoyed their quick operations on the field by offering sumptuous runs to India. Plenty of SIXes and Fours as generous gift did make the crazy crowd go frenzy too. But the matches became fake ones. Kenya perhaps got what it deserves some 70 odd truns, but it effectively denied any good score to any of the batboys what wanted 100s 50s as their birth right.  Thai is the achievement of Kenya and collapse of NZ, notwithstanding the win.

However, in fact India is all happy at all that Bangladesh did not lose all wickets as they did playing against Pakistan. Even after 500vers India, through the so called “magic man” Harbajan  bowled an extra ball to get the last wicket but failed at to achieve the illogical and immoral end. Some how India boasts they have got the best talent in the world. But in Common wealth Game sin Delhi and Asian Games in China India resorted to dirty tricks to get their people reach the finals and even get some medals. The way some tens players from other countries who played better than against Indians were asked to change their color of the dress after the half way is ridiculous ot say the least. But even after the change of color code others continue to dominate the  tournaments.

But how could other countries tolerate Indian fickle kindness and fanaticism?

The ongoing WC in cricket looks like a pro-India gimmick to promote Indian false image and interests. Srilankan skipper clealry saw Indian  strategy. The schedule and timings are meant to suit Indian side alone. But Indian tricks to fool the world could fail, as before!

With a view to fooling the  innocent looking world, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan now tries to justify the team defeat. He said he was confident his team would bounce back after the heart-breaking loss to India in the World Cup opener, but urged the bowlers to shape up. That is old trick. Bangladesh made a spirited chase of the daunting target under lights, reaching 283-9 as opener Tamim Iqbal scored 70 and Shakib contributed 55 off 50 balls in the group B match. Shakib blamed his bowlers for allowing India to run riot with the bat, but justified his decision to give the power-packed rivals first strike at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium.But who wanted that, if not the team from Dhaka?

THREE

Making runs, big scores or wickets are generally decided depending on the circumstances and who and which team require special treatment. Now India has claimed its right to win. There is a myth about making 100 plus as well as losing quick wickets. Generally one or  two batboys throw away their bat very early to enable some others  to make merry of scoring 100s etc as per the agreement. If, for example, Shevag is supposed to get a 100 pus, his co-batboy would leave the crease as quickly as possible  and even the next peerson coming to bat would also do the same. That is way to make spectators  the illusion of wickets and 100s.

Pakistani cricket is disarray. When a wicket falls, either the bowler's skill has worked, or the bot-boy has thrown away his bat for specific reason or a just hard-luck or a default wicket. Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar is undoubtedly a super fast bowler, but is totally spent bowler now who has not made any attempts to reinvigorate the  sport method with new techniques and all his old techniques are outdated and too familiar to the opponent batboys. Akhtar is clearly over spent and is now unfit to play in today’s cricket when the teams are expected to restrict runs. Akhtar not only refuses restricts runs, but also, on the contrary, offers enough runs to every batboy so that Pakistan does not win the match easily. Does he, like his president Zardari does it on people, he takes revenge on the selectors for keeping him out of international cricket for too long?  Akhtar maybe a good runner, but is a costly bowler.He refuses to make at least one maiden over. Maybe skipper Afridi, who plays a sort of game without any order these days for whatever reasons, has instructed him to do so.

Of course, there is something basically wrong with the team mindset because after wining the toss they chose to field even when bating first has the added advantage.

Perhaps, cricket has a learning point in tennis where once defeated an individual is out of tournament. In cricket, the  even world cup is preceded by "warmup" matches even after playing for months together and each team plays against the other prolonging the duration of the cup. Or, after the final is played, they must go for tennis method to determine the real winner, but without fixing the outcome of the matches. .

All old cricketers in every country needs to b replaced by new faces so that new cricket emerges. The fear that only the senior cricketers alone can get runs or wickets by using their “links” should go, and if they play well every player can enjoy the sport, by building rapport with foreign players, as usual at the night parties.  All efforts by Indian cricket mafia and media fanatics to make Sachin Tendulkar the only living Indian worth mentioning have failed miserably and Tendulkar get 15 to 17 runs which is his real caliber. However, Indian media nuts especially the TV channels are diehard fanatics and are still hope the mafias and industrialists would go any distance to get Tendulkhar even a Nobel prize for his London wax achievement on payment basis.

For some kind of credibility  to the cricket as a genuinely competitive sport, and for adding enough reliability of team performance and avoiding the fixing habits of countries and their mafias, every team must restrict the  cricketer team to only 2 years and at least 10 new faces should be brought in after every years and the remaining could be co-opted from the old team if necessary. After all there are ample cricketers in the former UK colonies to take over and showcase their ability and skills.

Over burdened with surplus cricketers on the field looking around for chances, fame and extra cash, India, for instance, supplies cricketers  to  any country that requires. After making enough billions, Indian cricketers also claim national rewards and awards for their service to nation. India media supported by mafia and black money promote them because they are a part of  national racket.

FIVE

It appears the fate of Manmohan corrupt regime depends not on their performance ( they are the worse day robbers)  but on how the industrialists and mafias make India the sole winning of cricket. India has been trying all tricks to get rid of those teams that pose serious threat ot Indian cricket. Behind all media gimmicks about Indian cricket greatism, like  other isms, there is a strong political rivalry and there is a poll component.

True, Kenya's was not a hard-fought loss, because they could not bowl well too. There are neither good bat-boys nor effective bowlers and the team looks like a temporary outfits collected from the Kenyan streets. But they had the courage to bat first. Pakistanis and Bangalis should also taken the bat first in stead of catching the ball hurriedly.It is outrages even if they thought fielding first is better.