Dravid Blunders Again To Script India's Exit From World Cup

The tragic death of Bob Woolmer has brought the attention of the world to the ill effects of "Betting" and "Match Fixing" on cricket matches It is understood that betting and match fixing are related. The reason is that when the bookies find that the result of a match or any individual event on which a bet can be placed can be manipulated, the financial incentive for manipulation will manifest. In view of the large sums of money involved, it is not surprising to think that individual players or even the umpires or even groundsman can be bought over for manipulating the match events.

Assuming that some cricket players are available for such manipulation, it may still be believed that most of the cricketers playing in a world cup would not bet on their exit from the world cup. It may be recalled that in an earlier world cup, Pakistan lost to Bangladesh which was suspected to be a fixed match. But it was a situation in the tournament where the loss did not matter since it did not affect the qualification of Pakistan to the next round. This time when Pakistan lost to Ireland, there is again a talk of a fixed match. But it may not be correct to presume that some body close to Pakistan team had fixed the match to be lost. But it is possible that certain events in the match could have been fixed. For example it might have been fixed that Pakistan will score less than 200 runs with the confidence that they can still win comfortably. But in the end the plan could have misfired and Pakistan could have lost the match. Had Woolmer been alive, he would have been questioned about the loss and if not for anything, in his defense, he would have revealed any such plan if there was one. This is a good motive for his murder.

In view of the prevalent environment of suspicion alround, whenever an unexpected event happens on a cricket field, fans smell something foul. India's loss to Bangladesh and its loss to Sri Lanka may also be seen with suspicion. But it may not be a betting induced match fixing that might have affected India. It may very well have been a power induced conspiracy within the team that might have misfired and caused India's exit.

Assuming that India was considered good enough to enter the Super Eight no body expected the loss against Bangladesh. Having lost against Bangladesh, no body wanted India to lose against Sri Lanka since this was known to be an elimination match. But, it still happenned.

Then, is there a ground to suspect that India was a victim of a mis fired match fixing exercise?

While the undersigned does not believe that the match had been fixed to be lost since the dis incentive for loss was too high for any such thought to cross a player's mind, it is necessary to think if there was a shadow of financial or power influences that indirectly affected the results.

The reason why such a possibility exists can be seen in the perspective of who would benefit from India's loss and who would have lost if India had succeeded in the world cup.

In case India had succeeded in the world cup to the extent of reaching the semi finals or finals then Rahul Dravid would have cemented his place as a Captain for a long time to come..perhaps until he had retired. Sharad Pawar would have taken the credit for India's victory and would have increased his strength in the Board as well as ICC.

This means that who ever expected to be a captain if Dravid is removed and Whoever expected to be the head of BCCI if Sharad Pawar is thrown out are the people who had a vested interest in India not performing upto their desired potential. If such persons included players, then the possibility of such players sabotaging the chances of India cannot be ruled out.

Does the performance of different persons give any indication of such "Infighting" in the team?. Let us look at the following NCR (Naavi Cricket Rating Table) table to scan the performances of different players.

Player	Bangladesh		Bermuda		Sri Lanka
	Batting	Bowling	Batting	Bowling	Batting	Bowling
Virender Sehwag	0	28	46	10	63	0
Munaf Patel	15	29	0	26	8	25
Zaheer Khan	13	8	0	38	-2	47
Ajit Agarkar	-1	-5	0	48	0	28
Yuvraj Singh	41	-7	42	0	3	0
MS Dhoni	-3		10		-1
Rahul Dravid	8	-	6	0	57	0
Sachin Tendulkar	-1	2	29	11	-2	21
Sourav Ganguly	37	-	8	0	-6	19
Anil Kumble		-	0	43
Robin Uthappa	5	-	0		17	0
Harbhajan Singh	-3	5		-	21	-2
Dinesh Karthik	-	-	0		-
S Sreesanth
Irfan Pathan

In the match against Bangladesh, India failed to put up a decent score for which the batsmen were responsible. Here, apart from persons who failed to score there was disappointment that players like Ganguly occupied the crease for nearly half the time and could not put up a good scoring rate. Once setting a moderate target, bowlers were unable to defend the same and the bowlers also failed. Here Harbhajan and Agarkar were the persons who disappointed.

Agarkar made up in the next two matches along with Sehwag. But in the Sri Lankan match, Dhoni, Tendulkar and Harbhajan again failed.

Yuvraj Singh was the one batsman who stood out in all matches. Dravid did well in one match and did not get a proper opportunity in other matches

A critical view of the performances give raise a doubt if the forces which represent the opposition to Dravid-Chappel team conspired to act difficult and it went out f control and resulted in the loss?

Now that the Dravid-Chapple team has failed and Ganguly has done just sufficient to retain his place, there is a possibility that demand for Ganguly to be made a captain will again increase. The beneficiary of this debacle will therefore be Ganguly and since Harbhajan has always been considered a favourite of Ganguly, his failure in both critical matches is a matter to be noticed. It is also necessary to explore who persuaded Dravid to replace Kumble with Harbhajan in the Sri Lankan match which was a very surprising decision. We need to know if any senior player argued in favour of Harbhajan and there was any ulterior motive in the same.

I suggest that BCCI conducts an enquiry on the same. I also feel that both Chappel and Dravid owe an explanation to the public without being bogged down by their contracts with BCCI if any of the players were uncooperative. I suppose this is also "Match Fixing" though not betting driven and should be considered with the same seriousness. BCCI should also consider a ban on all commercial contracts of players during their playing days since this introduces vested interests who may try to influence team selection and also fund any disruptive activities either to sabotage their business opponent's ad contracts or to boost their own.