IPL Fixed? Think again please.
The whole IPL controversy and Lalit Modi vs Shashi Tharoor Ego fight opened flood gates for all types of controversies including the Indian favourite “The match is fixed” syndrome.
Its absurd, radical, foolish and even science-fiction to think that IPL matces can be fixed. By even thinking and conjuring up theories about how its fixed, people have insulted the greats of the game like Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Adam Gilchrist, Rahul Dravid and so many more with a single thought! Rather than believing the TRP hungry media and the newspapers suffering from low readership and even lower circulation like Mid-Day, My advice to people who believe this Oscar winning tale is to use their brains which God has given them.
Anytime somebody does not like what they saw during the match or when their favourite player or team is not doing as good as they imagined in their minds, they are quick to call and label it “this match is fixed”. I have been seeing this on my Facebook, my twitter and heard this in the conversations with friends too. The sad part is everyone seems to be following the sadistic and sensationalistic coverage of the controversy. What the media has failed to distinguish is the difference between “Fixing” and “Betting”. People don’t understand the difference between the two and think of it as the same which is really sad and makes sense because people hardly pay attention in English class in school. Thank God I did. I don’t blame the media. They want TRP’s and higher readership. But I do blame people who just blindly follow something shown on TV or read in a newspaper. God has given you brains. Debate what is in front of you. YOU decide whether it is true or false. At the end if you still believe its fixed, its your opinion.
Just because a random pattern you thought or conjured in your mind came true during the match or you chose to believe your friend with “connections” who said that this team will lose and that team will win, doesn’t make the game “fixed”. It is called “Probability”. If only people paid attention in school/college when “Probability” was taught, they would have learnt that just like a coin toss which has a head and a tail, the same way, a cricket match has a loser and a winner. If you keep predicting, you will get it right one time or the other. It is the law of Averages (the real deal) and not “match fixing” (Nobel prize winning theory)
Just because the points table is tight, and any team may go through (Ofcourse leaving out Punjab and Kolkata :D) doesnt mean it is “fixed”. It just means that people did not pay much attention in school/college and now fail to understand basic probability.
Its not easy to “fix” a match. And the simple reason is that there are way too many people involved in one game. The 22 players who actually play the game. the Umpires and match officials, the team owners (no matter how shady they maybe like Team Kochi). And not to mention the ICC officials and Anti-corruption squads that are also involved in studying and observing the game for any discrepancies.
For the sake of argument. Lets believe that someone bought off a bunch of players. Do you honestly and really think that players like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Kieron Pollard will throw away their wickets? If you think yes, then you must be very much mesmerised by the MRF Blimp (which is not a blimp but just a blown up ballon) which keeps popping in during matches. If you think no, then well done. You just utilised your brains.
Since we are talking about the existence of “match fixing”. It exists in India and is done by parents living in the stone age and whose children don’t have the guts and balls to find their respective partners. THIS is called “Match-Fixing”.
