India is a country where Cricket is Religion that binds the Indians irrespective of their caste,creed,sex or color.The history of Cricket in India points long back to an era when our forefathers were fighting for an Independent India,at that time Cricket was not the same as it is today,a religion.
Cricket gained its popularity in India with its maiden World Cup Victory in 1983 when they defeated a great West Indian team in the finals.To me,it was the moment of a new religion that came up in India and from there on there was no turning back,Cricket in India went on from strength to strength with some good performances and title victory in the past,then came the Sachin era in 1989,a 16-year old Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar joined the Indian Cricket Team and none had ever thought that he would be greatest Cricketer of all time.Now it stands as ‘If Cricket is a Religion than Sachin is God’.
Indian Cricket again proved their dominance in World Cup 2007(runner’s up) and World Cup 2011(Champions) and even we won the first ever T20 world cup in 2007 which was a process to make the Game of Cricket Entertaining and to an extent it is successful.
Amidst of all these,when Indian Cricket is on its peak there are certain issue that is making Cricket the corrupt religion in India,with all the emerging glam,fame and money in Indian Cricket I think it is ‘No More a Gentleman’s Game’ and to a die-hard cricket fan like me it hurts like anything.
Out of all the issue,Sports Betting is the most severe and dangerous issue in Indian Cricket in current scenario.The recently concluded IPL has brought everything to light from players to top officials to celebrities all has been linked up.Even in past times when Indian Cricket team was under Mohd.Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja match fixing came into light but at that time no top officials came to light and the link up was only with bookies and players.The one thing that eat me inside is that what makes the Players or the officials involved in match fixing or betting to choose money over India and cheat Indians.These players or officials in my view don’t have such huge need for money that they do such cheap things,still their greed force them to sell our country and countrymen dignity without any hesitation.Recently the youngsters like Sreesanth,Chandila,Chavan whose name came into light get easliy lured by the money,can’t keep themselves content with their greed falls into the trap and make a mess out of it loosing their dignity and also the respect we Cricket lovers shower them with.
These betting and match fixing issues are spreading like a contagious diseases and the only way to curb them is to make stringent laws to fight such issues or to make things legal.I don’t think Indian Government or the Cricket fraternity has the guts to make such laws as time to time they have proved their inefficiency to curb wrong doings.So the latter option of making things legal holds a good position as people tends to bend towards illegal things and once such illegal things became legal it looses its importance,So making things legal at least gives the hope of minimizing such issues if not completely eradicate them.
To me “Cricket and India is a tale of two loving souls” but I am no more proud to be a part of it.With this notes I leave up my expectations to Players,Cricket Fraternity and other sensible person to make Cricket once again a sports as Corrupt free religion of India
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