I still dont believe that match fixing exists at the player level, but there cant be smoke without fire right? A couple of weeks back at Nagpur, I met a man, who wanted to come to Chennai on a small South India Tour. During conversation,I found out that the guy has been to all major cities in India by trains, given his knowledge of connecting trains.Later I find out that his cricketing knowledge is pretty decent, and he has been to most of the matches India play at home. He didnt look like the typical educated, well bred cricket crazy guy, but more so a guy, who did this as a chore and didnt mind all the travel. He said he was paid to travel to all these cricket matches and got VIP tickets. He didnt reveal much though, as our conversation ended when I decided to go away to buy a Newspaper.
When I later came to my berth and laid my body to rest, I observed this guy, sitting in the lower berth talking with some guy of how his world cup plans were laid to rest, since India lost out. It was later that I realised through their conversations that this guy is paid to watch every match in the Pavillion and takes care of the betting syndicate by coordinating with various persons from the stadium. When I heard this, I got down and looked at him with forlorn eyes to which he gave a devilish smile and said " Bachoo, aise kya dekh rahe ho, kuch batein kahi nahi jaati, bas aise hi ho jata hain". He said could not tell me more, but just gave me a light hint that Cricket is not as Virgin as i thought.
As an ardent Indian cricket fan, I can understand if someone said the team was lackadaisical when performing abroad, but when their integrity is questioned its a hard pill to swallow.
