Is The Stink In Cricket Deepening?

Is corruption in cricket a global phenomenon? With news leaking out about New Zealand captain Brendon McCullam's testimony to International Cricket Council (ICC) about being approached to fix matches, the rot does not seem to be restricted to India or the on-going Indian Premier League (IPL).

Govindraj Ethiraj discusses the issue on the BoomNews's show #TheIndiaHangout with veteran sports journalist Ayaz Memon and writer-journalist Dilip D'souza.

Memon says the current episode of corruption started around 2007 after India won the T20 World Cup. "The Indian Cricket League (ICL) started and then came the Indian Premier League (IPL), which paid players 4-5 times more than what ICL paid," Memon said.

ICL had hired players from New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka, and the boards were fighting against their own players, Memon said.

D'souza feels corruption knows no boundaries. "It is not the kind of game, it is the money that is involved that leads to corrupt practices, D'souza said.

Some other highlights of the discussion:

Lot of what we are hearing now happened in that period of 2007-08: Memon

The first time corruption in cricket came out was when Hansie Cronje was involved in 2000: Memon

I don't think any sport is entirely clean: Memon

I think cricket has just been lacking in setting up checks and balances: Memon

Pakistani players were found to be corrupt in a test match: Memon

Leagues offer more scope for such things: Memon

Hope is that all these revelations had a good impact on players and IPL 7: Memon

How you run the league is important; it needs to be far more robust: Memon