CRICKET CLEAN BOWLED BY RAILWAY OFFICER
The correlation could not be possible if play in the field was not scripted
The scripted play was not possible if fixing was not institutionalized and an internal job
Players whom we considered to be real-life heroes were mere actors in a big public fraud
Mainstream media (both print and electronic) is silent. All activists in India are silent. All investigating and crusader journalists are silent. The Modi government with pretensions of zero tolerance against corruption continues to act deaf and dumb. But unknown to the world at large, the mind-boggling on-going international fraud in the name of ‘Cricket’ now lies officially and formally exposed through the painstaking efforts and perseverance of one man for about a decade now. We had the privilege of finding all about it from the man himself, Atul Kumar, a retired Indian Railway officer. Atul Kumar is a 1979 batch IRSS officer, who took voluntary retirement in December 2011. While in service he not only highlighted the annual leakage to the tune of Rs 5000 crores in Railway procurement through cartels, he also succeeded in bringing possible solutions on record through a Railway Board constituted a committee in this regard. Later on the famed Metro Man, E. Sreedharan, also confirmed the continuance of that leakage in a report on Railways.
After taking retirement, Atul Kumar has penned many books, including four of those exposing institutionalized fixing in cricket, that can be said to be eye-openers for Indian intellectuals. His first book was ‘Rogues Rascals and Eunuchs (pain of an Indian whistleblower)’ and the last one is ‘Underworld Cup (Media, Modis, Mudgals, Mamatas All Dial Dawood).’ His satirical work “Phakeland’ is probably the most scathing satire ever on Indian society and polity. (Earlier ‘Paripurna Railway Samachar’ had published a detailed report in October 2016 on cricket fixing after the publication of the book ‘Underworld Cup’ All Cricket Matches are Fixed, ‘Cricket Sabse Bada Fraud aur Moorkh Bante Log’. Now the fact of cricket being fixed lies officially established).
Here are the excerpts of our talk with Atul Kumar:
Q. When and how did you get interested in cricket?
A. Like a common Indian kid, I was interested in cricket in childhood, both in playing with friends and listening to radio commentary. Chandu Borde used to be my childhood favourite. My playing cricket remained limited to street level. My passion with cricket grew with the advent of live telecasting of matches as I grew up. Probably suspense in the matches thrilled me.
Q. When and how did you come to know about fixing in Cricket?
A. My passion about cricket was well known among my colleagues in Railways. I used to dance when India won and felt quite depressed when India lost. About 15 years back I came to know about session betting in cricket. Session betting is that bets are placed on the number of runs to be scored in a given set of overs. Such betting was taking place in all the formats, ODI’s, T20’s, and in Test Matches. Even today most of the cricket fans are unaware of such betting taking place, though many are aware of betting taking place on outcome/result of a match. It is believed that the volume of betting on sessions is more than on match results in illegal betting markets. Now session betting is taking place online also.
Slowly but surely it dawned on me that session betting as it took place outside the ground had a distinct correlation with play in the field. Such a correlation could not be possible if play in the field was not scripted. And the scripted play was not possible if fixing was not institutionalized and an internal job instead of sporadic fixing taking place at the behest of bookies from outside as is popularly believed or rather people have been brainwashed to believe so over the years. And that enlightenment was shocking beyond words as one can imagine. There was a sudden realization that players whom we considered to be real-life heroes and superheroes were mere actors in a big public fraud.
Q. What you have said so smoothly and easily is too scandalous to understand and digest. Can you please elaborate a little for better understanding?
A. Yes, you are right. It is not easy to comprehend and then digest the harsh reality of cricket fixing. To understand it easily, let us consider session betting on first 6 overs and first innings scores of a T20 match. Betting and fixing remain same whether in league matches like IPL, TNPL, BPL, CPL, KPL, Natwest, Big Bash etc or international matches. Same players play in leagues and international matches, only colour of their clothing changes.
Now with so many leagues and matches taking place on the almost daily basis, it is not that difficult to see through continuous fixing. More often than not, one would see that scoring in end overs of these sessions is opposite to/against the run of play preceding these overs.
Either suddenly bowlers start bowling wides/no balls/lose balls to facilitate very brisk scoring in these overs or the batsmen go into defensive mode for no rhyme or reason. It was more than ten years ago that I was watching an ODI between two international teams.
Suddenly two well set explosive batsmen from the stronger team played 14th and 15th overs, the last overs of the power play, as a maiden. Those days first session for betting in ODI’s used to be of 15 overs, nowadays it is 10 overs. That set me thinking. Only a year or two back I came to know that this phenomenon was also exposed and explained by none other than the ex-Pakistani captain and wicket-keeper Rashid Latif in 2010 through an article titled ‘How Cricket Matches are scripted?’ published on espncricinfo.com (the link being http://www.espncricinfo.com/match-fixing-anniversary/content/story/468255.html). He has also narrated a very similar experience as had opened my eyes. Strange that cricket world including Harsha Bhogles, Sunil Gavaskar, and Vikrant Guptas has been silent on this explosive narration by an ex-cricketer available in public domain while continuing to sell fake cricket as competitive cricket to the gullible masses.
Later on, using principles of probability, I could scientifically prove that scoring patterns match after match and session after session around the world defied competitive cricket and had to be a result of scripted and manipulated play. This was briefly brought out by the prestigious English daily the Statesman through article ‘Cricket in Massive Fix?’ in July 2013 (https://www.thestatesman.com/sports/cricket-in-massive-fix-4860.html) and in detail in my book ‘Bettors Beware (match-fixing in cricket decoded).’ The cricket world still remained unconcerned and people remained ignorant. Once we know that scoring throughout a match is scripted, it should not be difficult to understand that this can’t happen without the involvement of all players and coaches. It can’t be that commentators and cricket experts remain unaware. Institutionalized/in-house fixing of cricket becomes very obvious, though believing so remains very difficult. Contrary to the fact, masses are being brainwashed 24×7 through long TV discussions and pages full of columns in newspapers by experts that teams were playing competitive cricket to win.
Q. Can a normal cricket fan who doesn’t know anything about betting see through fixing in matches? If so, how?
A. Yes, it should not be very difficult. When a bowler bowls a ball, he is totally free as to how he bowls, rest follows depending on how he bowls. That is a bit akin to a footballer taking a free kick or a penalty kick. Now, we very often see highly accomplished (that’s why they are in the team) and trained bowlers continuously bowling wides/no-balls/loose balls.
That just won’t happen in a competitive match. A bowler has a certain capability. He can go wrong once a while, but not repeatedly. In terms of Tennis, a bowler committing too many unforced errors should open our eyes. And if a bowler fails repeatedly, he will be replaced for good. Neither that happens. Fixed and scripted cricket, therefore, can be best seen through balls being bowled, especially in limited overs cricket. Why does a bowler capable of bowling lethal deliveries bowl those only once a while? Then it can be seen through set batsmen suddenly not going for big hits, but pushing ball defensively in end overs of innings or power plays.
The set batsmen giving catches on purpose to a lone fielder in the deep or fielders dropping catches on purpose becomes very obvious at times. But we fail to see because our mind is occupied with the suspense/thrill of the match and we forget that the erring players had extraordinary capabilities. Batsmen not trying to win a match or batsmen batting or bowlers bowling to lose from sure winning position happens too often to be termed uncertainties of the game. At times, the way batsmen get themselves out, get themselves run out, or fielders miss run out opportunities makes the drama quite obvious.
My books bring out above and more in more details from real matches bringing out many such instances.
Q. All this is subjective, one can’t be sure of fixing from above…
A. Right, that’s not to prove anything but only to suggest how a normal cricket fan can be aware that matches on view are far from competitive cricket. Scientific proof is already there. Further to that, there is enough in the public domain now to announce loud and clear that cricket was nothing but an open fraud. If it were not so, Hon’ble Supreme Court won’t have thought twice to summarily dismiss our PIL (myself and noted journalist and writer Shantanu Guha Ray being the petitioners) on the subject (http://www.livelaw.in/cleaning-cricket-retired-rly-officer-scribe-move-sc-seeking-stay-ipl-leagues-check-match-fixing-read-petition/). Not only due cognizance of this petition was taken by the Hon’ble Court, but the respondents BCCI and Union of India didn’t utter a word to counter the averments made in this petition.
The people remain unaware of all that is available in public domain to tell them that cricket is a fraud because one, media keeps on brushing such things under the carpet, and two because no one connects the pieces. Nothing can tell anyone with slightest brains that present-day cricket was a big fraud more clearly than the tweets by one twitter handle @theDcricket for more than last one year. Despite the fact having been highlighted by me to the authorities, everyone in the country has been acting blind. Here is someone in the open for more than a year who knows inside out about fixing, who is proving to the dumbest that cricket was massively fixed, and yet all those related to mainstream media, all the cricket authorities, and all the law enforcing authorities have been behaving and acting as if they didn’t exist. There can’t be a greater example of hypocrisy and degradation of mankind.
Q. Tell us briefly about this Writ Petition and its result…
A. Since the massive fraud through cricket continued despite having been publicly exposed repeatedly by me and having been brought to the notice of the authorities including PM Modi repeatedly, the Govt didn’t do anything despite its big claims on zero tolerance to corruption. PM Modi is very fond of honesty and Indian pride. Probably he only knows best what is so honest and proud in about protecting one of the biggest scams on earth.
Inaction by the authorities left me with no option but to file a PIL. So we filed a PIL in the Supreme Court of India telling it how a big public fraud with great harm to the people of India and the country was continuing, requesting it to form a SIT to further deal with this fraud and take action against the guilty. The guilty would include top politicians, top industrialists, top celebrities, and top cricketers among hundreds of individuals. To name a few – Mukesh Ambani/ Neeta Ambani, Arun Jaitley, Rajiv Shukla, Shah Rukh Khan, M S Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri. That will give one an idea of how big the issue was. In the first hearing, the Court ordered a copy to be served to UOI for it to assist the Court in the matter. Before next hearing, BCCI filed Caveat and got a copy of the petition.
Neither BCCI nor UOI filed or uttered a single word to counter the averments made in the petition. Nor did the Court itself do any such thing. Probably the facts brought out were so overwhelming that there was no such scope. In fact, quite strangely UOI whom the Court itself had asked to assist never moved a finger to assist and was not even there when the Court passed the order. In its order dated 7th May 2018 Court referred the matter to Committee of Administrators (COA) of BCCI for filing a report for further consideration.
Thus for all purposes, the averments made in our writ petition (C) no. 1163/2017, prepared by my learned councel Advocate K. B. Upadhyaya, now have the stamp of none less than the Supreme Court of India. The fact of cricket being a massive fraud lies formally established at the highest platform of the country. That still no one is doing anything about it and the fraud is continuing as such is another matter that should make Indian intellectual class, Modi Govt., and the whole nation feel ashamed. But probably we have grown beyond shame as a nation.
Q. What is the latest position of the case? What has COA done after the Court’s order?
A. As far as the writ petition/PIL goes, the Court’s order dated 7th May was the final order were in it ordered the report of COA to be considered by it in another main case relating to BCCI going on in the Court. It also invited us to assist the Court in that case. In deference to Court’s orders, I have filed an impleadment application in that case relating to BCCI, CA no. 4235/2014. To the best of my knowledge, the matter is pending that way on a date.
Anyway, I also followed up with the COA after the Court’s order. They responded belatedly, putting further stamp through their mail on our averments terming them as extremely important. Granting my request, they agreed to hold a meeting with us. Mr Vinod Rai, Ms Diana Eduljee, both members of COA, Mr Rahul Johri, CEO/BCCI, Mr Ajit Singh, Head, ACU, BCCI, along with a few other officials and legal advisors of BCCI held meeting with us, the petitioners, at New Delhi on 17/7/2018 on how to address the menace of fixing.
Such a meeting by BCCI was unprecedented. And yet the public is not aware of such developments that concern the public, because of media blackout. COA confirmed in the meeting that they were at the same page regarding our concerns and indicated that to deal with the menace as it existed was beyond them…
Q. You mentioned of a media blackout, what do you mean?
A. Let us see who markets cricket? Who sells cricket to the masses? It is through media, both print and electronic, that cricket is glamorized and popularized, especially among the young impressionable minds. Even though it lies exposed by me through media itself and my books years ago, and now through the writ petition in the Supreme Court that cricket was institutionally fixed and a massive fraud, media at large has continued to sell it as a competitive sport through printed columns and aired discussions and commentary. That has clearly been criminal on its part as it has been reporting falsely, hiding the truth from the public. To my mind, hiding such a massive truth is a much bigger crime for media than giving air to some fake news now and then.
Not only media has been hiding the truth, it has been facilitating and selling the fraud. That way this is a unique fraud where media itself is a primary culprit. If the media were doing its duty of telling the public the truth, there won’t have been any need for me to take pains of filing PIL in Supreme Court. While the media goes on keeping comparatively very petty matters of wrongdoings, like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Bofors, Rafale deal, Karti Chidambaram etc, involving very few people and comparatively peanuts in terms of value, alive for months and years, it has gone totally dumb after the fact of cricket being a big-big fraud involving who’s who of India and astronomical sums got formally established at the highest level. There were some reports published and aired after the first hearing of the PIL. But after that, the powers have wakened up and everything has been hushed up.
Today media barons, big industrialists and top celebrities have stakes in IPL or other league teams. Rajat Sharma of ‘Aapki Adalat’ fame is the present President of the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA). The top capitalists and politicians of India combine to run the fraud called cricket with media acting as their puppet. Media itself gets a lot of business from cricket as it is and media persons a lot of perks. Catering to self- service, everyone forgets Gita.
In nutshell, by hiding the truth of cricket being fake and a massive fraud from the masses, mainstream Indian media becomes guilty of everything it has been holding others guilty of over decades or it will ever hold anyone guilty of. This should also make it clear to any intelligent mind that Arnab Goswamis, Anirudh Behls, Navika Kumars, Ravish Kumars, Rajdeep Sardesais, Sudhir Chaudharys, have absolutely no credibility as journalists and they all are out there just to serve self-interest or their masters. A seemingly insurmountable problem for India, therefore, is that these self-interest journalists set out our daily agenda or we allow them to do so inadvertently.
Probably social media is no better. To my mind, there can’t be a greater degradation for a society than the corruption of its sports, especially a sport that is a religion to the masses. My highly intellectual acquaintances are busy on social media discussing all sorts of issues and non-issues, but such a massive fraud corrupting the soul of the nation and threatening its security doesn’t concern or bother them.
Q. You mentioned that fixed cricket was greatly harmful to the public and the country. Will you please explain how it is so?
A. Even those who understand that cricket is fake like WWE, take this fact lightly because they are not aware of many serious implications. Cricket is the second religion to tens of millions in India. They all stand cheated by fake cricket. It will be misplaced to expect a people celebrating a fraudulent sport to be morally upright otherwise. Today cricketers, state cricket Boards, BCCI, team owners, commentators, cricket experts, journalists and coaches, broadcasters – all earn mind-boggling sums. Ultimately all this money comes from the pockets of common man. This transfer of huge amounts from the common man to a few hundred is facilitated by fraudulent cricket. One may say that people don’t mind it as they are getting entertainment in return. That we can know for sure only after we make the masses aware that they were being entertained by a fraud and not a competitive sport.
Now we come to the main issue. In India, even though betting on sports and hence cricket is illegal, it is taking place openly and vastly both offline (over the phone through bookies) and online. Monetary value is so large that Law Commission of India itself has recently termed it as the parallel economy in black. From the various data available, the annual betting amount on cricket in India can be safely estimated to be above Rs 5 lakh crores. These are very conservative figures. No surprise if the actual amount is double or even more. With mushrooming of leagues like TNPL, KPL on the lines of IPL, and widespread betting on matches in these leagues, this amount is increasing each passing day. The scripting and institutional fixing in cricket is done to rob the bettors to earn a major share of this amount for the betting syndicates, most of those operating from foreign lands including Pakistan.
Dawood Ibrahim is officially reported to have been the main kingpin of these syndicates. Many examples of how it (robbing of bettors for the benefit of betting syndicates) is done have been posted on my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BettorsBeware/ in the past. To give the latest example here, the abject batting failure of strong Indian batting line-up in the recently concluded 2nd Test match against England at Lord’s was also towards that end. After keenly fought 1 st Test match hardly any bettor/punter would have placed bets expecting such one-sided affair. The pitch was the same for the two sides. After a washout on the first day, and prospects of rain in the remaining days as well, most of the bettors would have placed bets for a draw, to lose their money. There is every possibility that a substantial portion of the astronomical sums so looted from gullible Indians and others in the world through scripted and fixed cricket round the clock is used in terror activities throughout the world in general, and in Kashmir in particular. Even judges have ruled that it so happens so.
Q. Are there any other serious implications of cricket being totally fixed?
A. We continue to suffer total falsehood 24×7 through discussions on cricket even in our news bulletins. Most importantly, the Cricket fixing tells us a most explosive truth that becomes very obvious, and yet ignored by us all. Cricket matches between India and Pakistan have also been taking place. These have been no exception and as fixed as any other match. The last match between the two teams, the final of Champions Trophy, was even popularly understood and believed to be fixed. In fact, this match opened the eyes of many in India who were not much aware of cricket being fixed. Once we know that these two countries have been playing fixed cricket matches, it clearly derives that the much-advertised animosity between the two countries is fake and a false propaganda to keep the masses fooled in the two countries by their leaders. But many brave lives are lost regularly on both sides to maintain this pretence of animosity. There is no one to tell this explosive truth to the people of India and Pakistan. If they and the world were to know it, the whole political scenario would change drastically not only in the sub-continent but in the world.
Q. What else would you like the people to understand and know in this matter?
A. Many people still have a mental block that all can’t be involved in a fraud and cricket can’t be institutionally fixed. That is a very natural mental block and I don’t blame them for it. But if they were to pause and apply common sense they would realize in no time that if cricket were fixed it had to be institutionally fixed. It is just not possible that a few players indulge in fixing at the behest of some outside bookies and get away with it. If they were doing so, other players in the field and coaches would know it sooner than later. Not a single such instance has happened when players have been taken up for fixing by coaches even when the match being fixed became too obvious and a public knowledge.
A majority of people say that some matches are fixed but all can’t be fixed. My question to them is: doesn’t matter that all matches are not fixed but why no action against anyone for those some fixed matches? Even one fixed match that remains unexplained is as bad as all or majority of matches being fixed. And then there is the hard fact of session scoring and session betting that puts a full stop to all ifs and buts. If still there was any doubt left, there are tweets of @theDcricket and many other revelations in public domain which are unknown to those with the mental blocks.
What is most outlandish/astonishing/ bizarre (one can use all the synonyms together) is the fact that people talk about and discuss a lot about unsolved crimes/ frauds/ wrong-doings of comparatively petty nature such as Bofors, Rafale, Vijay Mallya; and here is a mind boggling/ incomprehensible/ massive international fraud and crime that lies totally bare and that involves so many heroes, superheroes, celebrities, powerful politicians and industrialists, and media moguls and yet everyone is silent about it. A big joke is that a few players are taken up here and there now and then for spot-fixing to keep the façade of anti-corruption units doing something, while the institutionalized fixing continues unquestioned.
Many of my friends and relatives do wonder as to why I have been pursuing this issue even when no one who matters has been bothering. They wonder because they are not able to comprehend the implications and I pursue because I know very well how big and serious the implications are. I could have done a lot to serve self with that time and energy but I couldn’t bring myself about to accept such a massive fraud being continued to be sold as a competitive sport 24×7. If this fraud is addressed, it will be an immediate relief to crores of people not only in India but outside also, and lakhs of crores of rupees being robbed from them every year will stop. Just try to imagine the amount involved. Terror funding will take a big beating. True, betting will continue, bettors will continue to lose and win, but will not be robbed as they are being now. The matches are so scripted through institutionally fixed cricket that bettors get addicted and then robbed.
I was quite scared when I held my first press conference in Jan, 2013 after publication of my first book exposing the extent of fixing in cricket written as fiction, since I was taking on the one of the most powerful mafia in the world having full support of big political leaders, industrialists, and establishment.. Journey since then has been very tough as probably this has been one of the most unequal fights in human history, one man fighting the combined might of those controlling almost half the world. I expected to get due support along the way as I was fighting for a big public cause and there were so many journalists and activists around who posed to be worried about public interest, Chetan Bhagats and Prashant Bhushans including, but I hardly got any from any quarter, except for some moral support from a few friends.
Finding an advocate to help in filing PIL itself turned out to be a tough task, and to file and pursue PIL wasn’t easy either. I don’t lament all that, don’t lament the hard work done, the risks taken, the tough journey. Because what has been achieved is not less than an unprecedented miracle, especially in India. A massive fraud involving hundreds of mighty and powerful of the country has been established under Indian judicial system and that too in just a few months. I could never imagine that the fraud would remain totally untouched even after that.
But I, therefore, do lament how things stand even today. The fraud called cricket, though publicly exposed and proved for years, now established before the Court No. 1 of Supreme Court comprising of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, well in their knowledge and that of the Committee of Administrators for BCCI and also President, PM, PMO, and Govt of India being fully aware, is still continuing in all its prosperity, those involved least bothered or concerned.
That forces me to say:
अंधों का शहर है, यह मुल्क मेरा !
यहाँ अँधेरे हैं सच, और उजाले झूठ !!
(Andhon ka shahar hai yeh mulk mera,
Yahan andhere hain sach aur ujaale jhooth!)
Presented by: Surresh Tripathi