Forgive him, for God's sake!. Review on M. Azharuddin

Azza’s life has all the ingredients that dreams are made of...a simple chap from a conservative and deeply religious middle-class Muslim family pursuing his dreams of making a career in cricket like millions of other kids, sheer determination and hardwork that saw him quickly rise play through all the layers of school, university, state, zone and finally for the country, a smashing debut where he hit three centuries on the trot to capture the imagination of the cricket crazy fraternity, the most successful captain of the National team, dozens of championship victories, money, fame, success, respect, he had them all.

Destiny has a strange way of squaring accounts...every meteoric rise is automatically followed by a precipitous fall. And so it was in Azza’s case too...just when it seemed that he was reaching the pinnacle his career, life fell apart like a pack of cards caught in a vortex of suspiciously sub-standard performances on the field that finally led to match fixing allegations and his ban from the game itself in all forms. Overnight, his image changed from a demi-God to that of a pariah. Nobody wanted to be seen or associated with him...some cricketers of yesteryear even wrote publicly that they wished that he had never played for India at all!

I’m not remotely related to Azza by blood, have never seen him play live nor did I ever paste his posters on the walls of my room when I was a student. I only know of him as being an extremely gifted and elegantly wristy batsman, an electric fielder and the most “winningest” captain that India has ever produced. Inspite of his own initial admissions to the contrary, the fact remains that he did take money on many occasions from bookies in return for feeding them privy information like the composition of the team, pitch conditions and even for playing under his potential. I agree as much as anyone else does that accepting money from shadowy characters belonging to the grey world beyond the confines of the cricket boundary is a blatant crime. Our national team comprises “Professionals” who play with the primary intention of earning a livelihood. However, more than the money, it is being given the one in a billion chance of representing the country on the International stage that ought to ideally drive the performance of these cricketers. While Azza did that admirably for a major part of his career, it was only during the last 2-3 years of his tenure that he began to get lured by the greed for money and eventually put his integrity and professionalism at stake.

Most critics, like astronomers, scope the subject from a distance. The widespread criticism and finger pointing against Azza makes it all look as if these critics and media persons were ganging up all these years waiting for an opportunity such as this one to bay for his blood. It still strikes me as strange that Azza could bribe nearly half the team into “throwing away” matches for huge sums of money without the other half having any knowledge of it. We all know that cricket is a team game and no one man can change the fortunes of a team on a consistent basis match after match. If Azza had really convinced his “co-conspirators” to lose matches, either he was a magician who had the ability to communicate in secret with these guys or the other “clean” members knew about it all along but kept their Mouths Shut! Lets face the truth, Sachin, Dravid and Kumble are probably to be blamed as much for knowing everything and keeping mum all along. If doing something wrong is construed as a crime, knowing it and keeping quiet is a greater sin. How, then, about banning all these ''other'' sacrosanct team members who played for a reasonable amount of time under Azza?

Almost all of us who have watched KBC would aver that “Greed is good in all its forms”. Our eminent politicians royally siphon the state coffers like it was their personal bank account. Why do we not do anything then? These satraps have been elected to power by us so that they can govern the state/country/locality well for our own well-being. Why do we not do anything when we know that they eat hundreds of crores of rupees every year...money that all of us have contributed in some way or the other? Is this not playing with the sentiments of the people too apart from wreaking havoc with the honour of the country? On the other hand, we are more passionate when a cricketer uses unfair and unethical means to make some extra money (which is not ours) for himself.

Tell me, what difference does it make for us whether India wins or loses a cricket match? Is our economy or standard of living going to change one bit if India wins the world cup (highly wishful thinking)? Are we going to have better roads and drinking water facilities in all villages if India beats Pakistan in one match and loses to Zimbabwe in the next? Why are we so hell bent on Azza facing the flak just because he accepted money to perform sub-standardly? Agreed that he has shown scant respect for our sentiments and the honour of the country. Are our politicians any better? When we can forgive them inspite of all their transgressions and vote them back to power over and again knowing fully well that the same cycle of canvassing-promises-elections-swearing-in ceremonies-gobbling funds-scams is going to repeat all over again, why not forgive Azza and give him a chance to atone for his mistakes?

Being human, its common for all of us to succumb to the seven deadly sins at any time...what is more important is that we realise our mistake and confess that we have gone wrong and show an earnest urge to atone. The South African Cricket Board has already shown signs of forgiving Hansie Cronje and he is expected to commence training some junior teams shortly. Why can’t we take a cue and do the same with Azza, provided that he comes out clean and seeks forgiveness publicly? The man has clearly suffered enough trauma since the match fixing allegations first broke out about 2 years ago and must be now repenting for his actions. Mythology is a witness that even God forgave his enemies, are we above God Himself that we steadfastly refuse to forgive a fellow human being?

As a parting shot, here’s an interesting piece of statistic – we won a string of tournaments under Azza while he was at the helm but lost in 8-9 consecutive finals (!) in the last 2-3 years under Saurav Ganguly. Now, which is a more convincing case of match fixing?