Cricket: Match Fixing: Days of Reckoning


	August 07, 2000

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MATCH FIXING
Days of Reckoning

The BCCI will soon have to take tough decisions on the future of the Indian coach and several players

By Sharda Ugra

India Today issue dated August 07, 2000 There are, Napoleon said, different ways of killing a man -- by pistol, sword, poison or by moral assassination. "They are the same in their results except that the last is more cruel." There may be no end in sight to cricket's current travails, but the men at the centre of the storm -- coach Kapil Dev and former captains Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja -- can consider themselves morally assassinated. The CBI has called them in for questioning and tax men have walked into their bedrooms, trampled over their lawns and rifled through their private papers. Yet, the first impact of these past four months will only be felt when the Indian selectors sit down early in August to pick the team for the Sahara Cup in Toronto.

Kapil Dev's term as coach still has another year to run, Azharuddin has played 99 Tests and dreams of a 100th, and Jadeja has just shouldered his way back into the team. But can they hold on to their jobs? Should they, at a time when holding onto integrity is proving to be an ordeal?

Chairman of selectors Chandu Borde backpedals fiercely, stating that "the directive must come from the board president" because "this is another matter". A directive to omit players on grounds other than cricket is very much a part of the BCCI's history and its rule book, but it is board President A.C. Muthiah who will now call the shots. The Chennai-based businessman remained unavailable for comment.

Money for everything and perks for free
RICH PICKINGS
India's elite cricketers can rake in the cash in many ways that have nothing to do with bets or bookies

Lost in the swarm of stories about property worth crores of rupees, luxury cars and jewellery, is the savage twist to the tale of the Income-Tax Department's raids on cricket's rich and famous. India's biggest sporting heroes can, without help from any manner of wheeler-dealers, earn millions from cricket alone. An Indian cricketer today, provided he stays in the playing XI, takes home an enviable salary, and the bits on the side are not bad either. The industry is notoriously cagey but the following figures, an estimate of the many sources of a cricketer's income, have been obtained from the BCCI, sports agents and advertisers:

Match earnings: As of 1998-99, Rs 1.1 lakh per Test match (the board's match fee is Rs 40,000, and the balance comes from the team sponsor, Wills Sport) and Rs 1.05 lakh per one-day international (Rs 25,000 from the board and the balance in sponsors' fees). The team sponsors logo fees works out to Rs 70,000 per Test and Rs 80,000 per one-day match to the playing XI.
The board deducts Rs 4,000 per Test match and Rs 2,000 per one-day international from every cricketer's match fees and adds identical amounts to the player's benevolent fund. The team is paid a bonus for winning matches and the man of the match prize money is shared in a 25-75 split between the winner and the team pool.
In 1999, India played 10 Test matches and 43 one-day internationals and this year, have already played 3 Tests and 20 one-day internationals. In a packed 1998-99 season, Ajay Jadeja could have earned more than Rs 40 lakh while Sachin Tendulkar's match fees of the past five seasons (from 38 Tests and 147 ODIs) total close to Rs 2 crore.

Endorsements: Cricketers endorse products from sliced bread to designer watches. In 1995, Sachin Tendulkar's record five-year signing fee with World Tel was, by conservative estimates, worth $5 million or Rs 22.5 crore. In 1998, Rahul Dravid was worth Rs 20 lakh to Pepsi for a year-long contract. Today Ajay Jadeja can routinely charge Rs 40 lakh for an endorsement deal, and a one-year contract for youngsters like Debashis Mohanty or V.V.S. Laxman could cost between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. The agent's commission ranges between 10 and 25 per cent. Built into most contracts are healthy bonuses for centuries hit, wickets taken and other "honours" like the captaincy, which help build the profile of players.
Sponsored columns: Indian cricket's "expert" columns are usually ghost-written, rehashed and hugely expensive, especially if a current player is involved. Syndication agencies pay a columnist depending on his star value, starting from Rs 50,000 for a current star like Saurav Ganguly. Former Indian cricketers like Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohinder Amarnath or Sanjay Manjrekar could charge something like Rs 15,000 per column.

County/league club contracts: Dravid, Ganguly and Anil Kumble will be paid a tax-deducted salary of -- 60,000-70,000 (Rs 42-49 lakh) for playing county cricket. Indian cricketers also head off to play club and league cricket in the off season, the better English league clubs offering players up to -- 5,000-8,000 (Rs 3.5-5.6 lakh) a season for weekend games and free accommodation.
Corporate functions/interviews: Celebrity appearances at a corporate function or personal TV interview have their own price. An hour with a star player could cost Rs 3-4 lakh. One with coach Kapil Dev could cost $1,000 (Rs 45,000). The latest chestnut in the fire is on-line chats on websites, with star players charging close to Rs 50,000 for an hour-long chat.
Benefit matches: Amarnath and Vengsarkar received Rs 40 lakh each from benefit games. The Cricketers' Benefit Fund in Sharjah has named 40 Indians as beneficiaries, awarding them Rs 11 lakh each.

KAPIL DEV
Total match earnings*: Rs 66.5 lakh
Played: 131 Tests/ 225 ODIs (1978-1994)
*This estimate is calculated by taking an average of Rs 25,000 per Test and Rs 15,000 per one-dayer before the mid-90s windfall. Excludes all rewards after the 1983 World Cup and world record wickets.

MOHAMMED AZHARUDDIN
Total match earnings*: Rs 2.1 cr
Played: 99 Tests/ 334 ODIs (1984-2000)
*In Azhar's career spanning almost two decades, total match fees have increased from an average of Rs 25,000 to Rs 1.1 lakh per Test and an average of Rs 10,000 to Rs 1.05 lakh per one-dayer.

AJAY JADEJA
Total match earnings*: Rs 1.7 cr
Played: 15 Tests/ 196 ODIs (1992-2000)
*A product of pyjama cricket, endorsement contracts for players like Jadeja are estimated to be nearly three times their earnings from cricket matches and so fees tell only partial truths.

Silence cannot will away cricket's problems. It is merely a sign that the pressure from the Government is now beginning to tell. A BCCI official admitted that "everyone would heave a sigh of relief" if Kapil Dev stepped down before Toronto. The coach's two-year contract with the board can come up for review at the annual general meeting scheduled for September. It could also be revoked but that is not a step anyone would want to contemplate, even though after the raids public sentiment has shifted away from the man who brought home a World Cup. Two factors have kept his position secure so far: the memories his name evokes, and the CBI's flimsy legal case. The memories and sympathy are fading fast, and while the Gujarat Government's much-publicised decision to scrap a school text chapter on Kapil may well be populist tokenism, the gesture carried the sting of a slap on the face.

In these circumstances, how much of a coach could Kapil be? His record with the Indian team is already dire: under Kapil's tutelage, India have played eight Tests and 25 one-day internationals, winning a solitary Test and nine one-dayers. Last season, India failed to bowl out a weak New Zealand twice in two home Tests and early this year lost a Test series at home for the first time in 13 years. Predictably, now there are rumblings within the team itself, senior players complaining in private that Kapil's cricket inputs have failed to fit the bill, that he fusses too much about the team's clothes rather than its competitiveness.

"Kapil should be left alone," advises former captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, "until something can be proved against him. At the moment he's being judged in public, which is unfair. He should continue as coach, provided he thinks he can do a proper job, which I personally feel will be difficult."

What of the cricketers, who are hardly likely to step down even though they will play before an increasingly cynical audience? At the moment only Jadeja, Azharuddin and Nikhil Chopra, at most times on the fringe, are in the running for selection.

On cricketing merit alone the veterans' cases are shaky: in 11 one-day matches this year, Azharuddin has scored one fifty in a total of 268 runs, while Jadeja has 315 runs and two half-centuries. It makes for a very neat numerical smokescreen; should the selectors be instructed by the board to make someone pay for Bookiegate, their careers could crash and burn inside a month. Pataudi poses an intriguing question: "Some board officials have also been raided. What's to be done with them?" Whatever direction the CBI and the income-tax investigations may take, it is now certain that Indian cricket and its stars will take many months to recover from a crisis of their own making.

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