Being paranoid of cricket victories

It is good see the feeling of ahoi in the cricket loving population on Indian cricket team's victorious show in New Zealand. There are reasons to celebrate. After 1976 Indian cricket team has won a test match in New Zealand. With this the title that makes people flinch, "Heroes at home and zeroes elsewhere" is challenged. The limited overs cricket series win is also a good news. The performance of Sachin and Sehwag along with the back to form Dravid are commendable. Then why paranoia?

Reason behind the paranoia is historically driven. Indian cricket team was victorious under the captaincy of Mohd Azharuddin and everyone was ecstatic about the resurgence of Indian cricket team. But when it came to key performance occasions, the team goofed. The two world cups and some other international matches stand as evidence for this. In Sharjah, the team had a habit of losing the finals. But yet, when it came to overall performance, the team was good.

Then came the startling revelations of match fixing, bookie-player nexus, underworld manipulation of cricket and so on. The performance of the team and the losses in key matches were pre-orchestrated. Players played and goofed for money and no sporting spirit was allowed. The key people were South African players and the then Indian cricket captain. Fine this is history. What gives to be paranoid about the victory now?

The coach of Indian cricket team is a South African, the players are young and partying hard when not in the game. Dhoni is rumored around with an actress, as Azhar was during his prime. Girls are the easy way to gain access to players privacy. Add up all these information and the recent history of the Indian cricket, along with the money poured into their pockets through IPL(where does this much money come from), makes one to suspect that Dhoni might do an Azhar.

Shameless unlike elsewhere, Azhar is admitted into Congress party and is asked to seek election to represent people. Crimes of the worst nature go unpunished and after while perpetrators and criminals are given place in the political arena in the nation. So, fear of punishment is also ruled out. With no bar to any sort of conduct, we have every right to suspect that something is fishy underground with the victories in New Zealand.

People may suggest to pray to God for not landing us up in such a situation again, as if God has no other job than policing crickters. He has the few good men in the world to take care of, and that is a mammoth task.

Azhar in Congress - Defying Science!!!

The recent reports in the media that one of the former India cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin joining the Congress is really eyebrow raising from a scientific stand point. Let us check out the history of these two, because I don't want to just dabble around without historical evidence and data proof for my stand. Congress is the most corrupt amongst political parties. Azhar is the most corrupt amongst cricket captains. Let us see in detail.

Congress has corruption and controversial behaviour as a trait right from Independence.
In 1948, after the knowledge that the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, Nathuram Godse, was a Maharashtrian Brahmin, the so-called non-violent Congress Party went on a rampage , killing hundreds of Maharashtrian Brahmins, burning their houses and putting thousands in jail.

In 1957, Haridas Mundhra a notorious stock speculator, got the government-owned LIC to invest Rs. 1.24 crores (about USD 3.2 million at the time) in the shares of six troubled companies belonging to Mundhra. The investment was done under governmental pressure and bypassed the LIC’s investment committee, which was informed of this decision only after the deal had gone through. In the event, LIC lost most of the money.

Starting then, the Congress was always the center of controversies and corruptions. KGB money was flowing into the country and was instrumental in keeping the Congress Party afloat in the political arena, by "all" means. We have Mitrokin's archive to speak about it.

Bofors scam speaks a lot about the Congress party's scant respect for national defense. During Narasimha Rao's period, corruption was at it's prime in every nook and corner of the administration. Right from pittance to pickle, there was corruption. We had the PM accused of taking bribe to bail out a tainted stock broker. Result of inquiry is ambiguous, as usual.

Well, take the case of Mohammed Azharuddin. Statistically he is one of India's most successful captains. In 1991 he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. But then came out all his corrupt practises and collusions with the underworld operations. He abetted with betting monsters and ruined the spirit of sport, not for victory but for money. Former South African captain Late lamented Hansie Cronje, in his confession for match-fixing, had indicated that Azharuddin was the one to introduce him to the bookies.

India's premier investigation agency the CBI had stated in it's report as follows,"It is clear that Azharuddin contributed substantially towards the expanding bookie/player nexus in Indian cricket. The enquiry has disclosed that he received large sums of money from the betting syndicates to fix matches. There is also evidence which discloses that he roped in other players also to fix matches, which resulted in this malaise making further inroads into Indian cricket. The evidence against Azharuddin, which is discussed next, clearly establishes that he took money from bookies/punters to fix cricket matches and also the fact that the underworld had approached him to fix matches for them."

This led the BCCI to ban him from cricket for life in 2000. In one of his interviews, Azhar claimed that he was being targeted because he was from a minority community. After severe criticism from all parts of the country, including prominent minority community organisations, Azharuddin had to apologise publicly and retract his statements. A typical Congress style.

Both Azhar and Congress party have similar traits. We have studied science that says, only opposite poles attract. We don't have an answer to why, as with physics we have answers for only how and what. But I've come across a beautiful explanation on the web that inspired me, may be because I'm an economics student.

The given reason for opposite polls attracting each other is,"because everything in nature tries to reach equilibrium. Positive and negative are in equilibrium when they are neutral. They can become neutral only by coming together and they attract".

As always reality would be stranger and we may have Azharuddin given the sports ministry if Congress comes to power, as history states that corruption and Congress are two sides of the coin called scandal.

Well, let us get back to the point. Corrupt Congress and corrupt Azharuddin have come together. They both have same qualities, so could be classified as same poles. Hence this union is science defying.

Terror Targeting Sports

Terror has no religion said people who oppose terrorism being unleashed in the name of religion. Terror has no common sense. In common terrorists have no sense, so looking for common sense in them is an imbecile expectation. The attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan is the latest evidence to prove that terror has no human sense. Luckily the players were not fatally attacked. But one of the umpires are still critical in an ICU.

This is not the first time sports persons or sports event is targeted by terror. Terrorism has threatened the Olympic Games also. In 1972, when the Olympic Games were held in Munich, West Germany, eleven members of the Israeli athletic team were taken hostage by the terrorist group. A liberation attempt led to the deaths of the nine abducted athletes. Another example of terrorism at the Olympics came during the Summer Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta. A bomb was detonated at the Centennial Olympic Park, which killed 2 and injured 111 others. The bomb was set by an American domestic terrorist, who is currently serving a life sentence.

What made terrorists to attack sportsmen, who have nothing to do with their so propagated war of ideology. They play for the sake of the game. The ideology is not at stake. Even the national pride is showed up to be at stake by the media hype to get publicity to the advertisers product. The sportiness is marred by such publicity. So the media and the publicity industry is partially responsible for violence flaring up due to a loss in a game.

Well, let us get back to the current situation. What has Pakistani terrorists against with Sri Lankan sportsmen, given the pro-Islamic stance of the SriLankan Government to counter the Hindu-Christian LTTE? So, a direct ISI hand is ruled out. We have intelligence reports that some of the Jihadi outfits have themselves indebted to LTTE for some arms smuggling and drug trafficking. LTTE had got valuable weapons as kick backs for such 'helps'. This is kind of a give and take without trusting each other.

The BBC has ruled out the possibility of either the direct or indirect involvement of the LTTE on the ground that many of the star SL cricketers are Tamils and it would not want them killed. But given the history of LTTE, one would not accept this argument. We have a list of prominent and pragmatic Tamil leaders killed by LTTE. Amirthalingam, Varadaraja Perumal and Neelam Thiruchelvan are to name a few. The LTTE head honcho has a self centric tendency which triggers the murders of many other Eelam tamil leaders who gain prominence over that person.

We don't need lessons to understand the LTTE's stand against Sri Lanka. Now that the link between Islamic terror gangs and LTTE has been established, we can take a safe bet that the Lahore attacks were done as a return of favor to the LTTE, which was reduced to a gang on the run for life, by the recent attacks mounted by the SL army. The art of hiding and awaiting right time to strike is the guerrilla strategy and LTTE follows it like night to the day.

But we should not rule out the possibility of the Islamic terror gangs viewing cricket as a westerners' game and targeting it to root it out of Pakistani soil, as a first step towards 'cleansing' the Islamic world of western leanings. At least now, Pakistan should employ it's true professional investigators to find out the truth behind this crime and let the world know. Whether or not the terrorists are punished in Pakistani soil is not our concern, but we're concerned about the Islamic terrorist gangs taking the sub-continent for granted and threatening tranquil human life.

If Pakistan is not acting, India shall act taking up the role of Big Brother protecting siblings, at least to preempt terror from again bloodying our soil.