Cricket As False Sport: Teams Play Only For Sharing 100s And 50s – OpEd

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Cricket is perhaps one of the biggest jokes, enjoyed by innocent people as a real sport. This falsification, unfortunately, has the endorsement of many governments being controlled by corporate lords that sponsor cricket-for-profit.

Nowadays, to promote bating, a minimum score is fixed by them. Accordingly, the team that bowls first needs to offer at minimum runs as a target score for the second bowling team to chase down.

It is a known truth that batboys at the crease with bats get runs not just by running between wickets, but mainly by hitting 4s and ^s and this happens mainly because of the weak and hollow bowlers who are trained to act too much with a ball on the field r to generate a false impression about their intended efforts for wickets, while in fact they only help the batboys increase the run rates .

If one thinks upon winning the toss, a team opts for bowling the bowlers would be seriously reckless with the ball, disappointment would be the results as bowlers bowl to give as many runs as the batboys want especially the bowling team that comes to “attack” first.

Every bowling team needs a couple of wickets to impress the crowds that know nothing or care about nothing about match fixing. Once one or two wickets fall, the bowlers offer too many runs as per their mutual agreements – from 3 runs per over to 15 runs per over, depending on the format they choose to fool the public. The team also decide prior about the “estimated score” for the team bating first.

After giving as many runs in 4s and 6s etc, the team that bats second has to chase down the total to win the match if it can while getting back 100s runs, a record, etc as return favors. If the team had given too many runs, it is difficult to chase down the total if the bowlers are reckless.

That is reason why India always wants to bat first by somehow ‘winning’ the toss. The bowlers and fielders would keep in mind the target score and work towards that without harming batboys. The score for the first bating team is also decided from 150 to 600 runs, depending on the format they choose.

Generally, bowlers can target w stumps or wickets or reduction in run flow only towards the end of the match when the ‘needy batboys” are safely with 100s, etc.

One would be surprised to watch how the fiddlers de-recognize the site of the stumps when they throw the ball to effect runouts. After so much “training” by paid coaches, the fielders and bowlers have no idea about the stump attack. The fact remains the cricket boards, captains and corporate mafia discourage all serious bowling and fielding. Once in a while something happens, but that is not a rule, only an unintended anomaly.

Interestingly, as top batboys fall cheaply, the commentators say that the tail enders defended the team exemplaryly and they just shut their blind eyes and refused to say anything about bowler tricks to promote the batboys and maintain a good score for the opponent team.

Umpires are agents of the mafia that recommends umpires.

The cricket teams fix matches for 100s and they also decide which batboy deserves a quick 100 for which a couple of other batboys would quickly sacrifice their wickets.

Governments, managed by corrupt elements, thriving in dirty money and illegal wealth, also promote fake sports persons for more black/grey money and awards.

Governments do not want any law to contain fake sport operations in the name of entertainment.

Nor is there any effective international legal mechanism to punish all match fixing teams and captains. Governments cannot fool the public with the increasing joint cricket exercises.

Sri Lanka pays India in the same token!

Sri Lankan team learned a vital lesson from its own junior team: Under-19 team. On February 09, India Under-19 team seemed to have played mischief with the junior Srilanka Under-19 team. As SL Under-19 team badly lost to India, SL team playing T20 with Indians in India was very careful and bowled India to a meager 101 runs and defeated India by chasing down that total easily.

In the ongoing ICC Under-19 World Cup, India and Sri Lanka played the Semi final on February 8 in Bangladesh. No doubt India is stronger than Sri Lanka in many respects but not necessarily in cricket as well. Sri Lanka won the toss but elected to bowl. Sri Lanka began very seriously the first few overs and mainlined 3 runs per over and took 3 wickets. And it appeared India would d not cross 125-150 score, but later Sri Lanka began adding quick runs to increase the run rate to 5 runs per over. SL did not target for wickets until 45th over. India lost 9 wickets, but got 267 runs.

When Sri Lanka’s batboys came to the crease, Indian bowlers began reckless bowling. While Sri Lanka increased the run rate of India after half way through, India never let Sri Lanka’s batboys to get good runs right from the beginning and halfway through decreased the run rate of Sri Lanka, which got 170 runs.

India uses diplomacy (rather triclomacy) to influence the foreign cricket teams to be considerate about Indian concerns. Already IPL tricks have worked for India. It is quite likely India had a word with SL to let India bat first and give at least 250 runs as minimum score. And after winning the toss Sri Lanka opted to bowl instead of bating and offered more than 250 runs. After two quick wickets, Sri Lanka gave Anmolpreet Singh 72 runs and Sarfaraz Khan 59 runs. Possibly Sri Lanka would have expected return favors as at least one 50 runs from India but that did not happen because India wanted to win.

Interestingly, even junior cricket team under 19 of Pakistan also continues the main team’s predicament in cricket of securing 100s and 50s as perhaps Pakistan’s sport policy. On 08 February Pakistan under 19 team badly lost to West Indies after from being the favorites to win. West Indies bowled first and their bowlers began attacking Pakistani batboys and took 5 early wickets but after that they began keeping two batboys at the crease for the sixth wicket by offering runs to the tune of 100 and 50 receptively. Pakistanis enjoyed that part as Pakistani batboys Umair Masood and Salman Fayyaz got 113 and 58 runs respectively while Pakistan got a score of 227 runs for 6 wickets. Pakistni bowlers cold have won the match but they first wanted to make the return favors to West Indies batboys and began bowling very positively in quick runs. TA Imlach and SO Hetmyer were given good 50s. Maybe a 100 for its batboy was a special that it thought to first returning the favors first and then win the match as well. That did not happen as WI won the quarter final match to reach the semi final and it is quite likely it would win the race as well against India.

For most Pakistanis, perhaps, getting a 100 for batboys is more important than winning a match in a genuine manner. They would even argue that Pakistan got what it wanted – a 100 runs. A fake record!

What is the best method to take wickets?

There is only one method for taking wickets at regular interval: commitment to the bowling profession. Every bowler is trained but they are used for promoting the cause of batboys. As a result, more often than not, bowlers are seen playing mischief and not serious bowling. ICC boys possibly instruct the bowlers to be considerate about batboys’ needs.

Bowlers should be serious and committed to win the match for the team. And seriousness can be demonstrated by denying easy runs for the batboys.

Of course, if bowlers are lucky or batboys are unlucky, quick wickets are possible Also when batboys deliberately give away their wickets to enable other batboys to make 100, etc.

However, bowlers should not depend wholly on batboys bad luck or their own luck. But they must practice well.

Bowlers should enlist the full commitment from fielders and skipper.

Bowlers should stop offering runs for fun or money or for some other reasons.

ICC should reform cricket in such way that getting a run becomes as difficult as taking a wicket, if not more difficult. It should consider 6s and 4s and let batboys make scores only by running.

Getting runs in 6s and 4s but without running between the wickets looks strange!

ICC should introduce double wickets from a ball as well. If a batboy is caught the ball should be thrown to remove the other batboy as runout if he is out of the crease when ball arrives.

Every rule stitched to make poor batboys shine too much with 100s and 50s while bowlers have to support that mischief as their duty.

Indo-Pakistan batboys eager for early series!

It appears India thinks it gets due recognition for its “records and rankings” in cricket only if it plays with Pakistan. For Pakistan which wants to promote only cricket as sport and as major entertainment and seeks 100s and 50s for its batboys in order to make them heroes, urgently seeks to joint cricket exercises with its nuclear neighbor. In fact, Pakistani youth has lost interest in real sports and young as well as old people play cricket only for 100s and 50s.
Pakistan remains the only nuclear power on earth which has almost zero level sport talent. In the ongoing South Asian Games, for instance Pakistan is way behind India in medal tally, although it can claim to be much better than Bangladesh. Maybe, Pakistan wants to leave sport field to India as the latter does not like any serious challenge from its rival nuclear power in sports. Whatever maybe the reason for Pakistan’s very pathetic performance cannot be justified in simple explanations as Pakistani youth is denied its role in sports
.
However, Indo-Pakistani cricket matches are the most dangerous tournament as they create panic situations and generation tensions like cross border attacks.

Due mainly to terror issue, Pakistan and India have stopped playing cricket series. While India manages 100s and 50s on a regular basis, Pakistan would feel suffocated without them. Now more than India, Pakistan is eager to restart the stalled joint exercises.

Both Pakistanis and Indians are upbeat about the prospects of their teams playing cricket, to help batboys share 50s, 100s and more, after a lapse of many years owing to tensions between them over stated issues like terrorism. Pakistani corporates are restless without being able to sponsor matches for making huge profits, including tax concessions.

It appears, more than India, Pakistan is keen to play with India to legitimize its 100s and other mutual scores. Not many countries invite Pakistanis team to play, while except Sri Lanka no cricket nation sends their teams to Pakistan. That is the big loss for Pakistan though not a great tragedy for the nation. But Pakistani government seems to be adamant to play only cricket as sport and hence not at all interested in genuine sports.

Pakistani entertainments include films and cricket as it does not play any other real sport. Pakistani government seems not promoting sports in the country

PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan has said if “the proposed India-Pakistan bilateral series” is not held now it would not be possible to have one for the next one year. He also made it clear that the bilateral series with India that is still undecided and the World T20 were two separate things. “This is a bilateral series between two nations the World T20 is an ICC event.”

But the PCB chief said in an interview that the PCB will have to seek its government permission to send the team to India for the World T20 in March. “We are monitoring the situation but given the current environment in India with regards to Pakistan we will have to ask our government for permission whether the security situation is ok for us to send our team,” he said.

Khan sounded visibly disappointed at the failure of the Indian board and government to clear the short bilateral series with Pakistan in Sri Lanka. “We feel that India must fulfill the MOU signed between the two boards and if the series is held it will play a role in improving India and Pakistan relations.” Khan also insisted that if India didn’t agree to play the series the PCB would obviously suffer financial losses but would not go bankrupt. “.. We are in a stable financial position and though not having the series will deprive us of lot of estimated revenues but it does not mean we will be in a bad financial position.” The PCB chief said he had still not given up hope and even the ICC wanted the two boards to play the series soon.

Khan confirmed that ECB President Giles Clarke was playing the role of a mediator in the whole issue. Khan felt that the Indian board also wanted to play the series but said it was not up to them to convince their government to give clearance.

Nothing has moved further. Possibly Indo-Pakistani series would add more problems to the regional problems. Pakistan should not buy problems for its people.

Pakistan needs to change its cricket mindset so that Pakistani youth begins take interest in sports.

While the corporate media promoting only cricket are not bothered about the future of Pakistani youth, Intelligentsia in Pakistan has a positive role to play in encouraging the youth to engage themselves in real sport activities and avoid fake sport like cricket.

Fake runs, fake records and fake glory, even if the governments promote them, are not valid in Islam.

Dr. Abdul Ruff

Dr. Abdul Ruff is a columnist contributing articles to many newspapers and journals on world politics. He is an expert on Mideast affairs, as well as a chronicler of foreign occupations and freedom movements (Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya, etc.). Dr. Ruff is a specialist on state terrorism, the Chancellor-Founder of Center for International Affairs (CIA), commentator on world affairs and sport fixings, and a former university teacher. He is the author of various eBooks/books and editor for INTERNATIONAL OPINION and editor for FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES; Palestine Times.

2 thoughts on “Cricket As False Sport: Teams Play Only For Sharing 100s And 50s – OpEd

  • February 15, 2016 at 6:23 pm
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    Does this guy even know about cricket or is he a baseball reporter? Got it, he’s a joke. I always like to respect the columnists but not people like Ruff who seems to be writing anything anywhere just because they have the freedom to do so. Utter rubbish, ruined my morning by reading it!

    Reply
  • February 17, 2016 at 3:35 am
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    dont insult the editor of journal like this. Not good for Indians.

    Reply

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