The game of cricket which is supposed to be nobleman’s game has taken a u turn as book makers have taken over and lately, a Bollywood star, Nupur Mehta has been accused of being involved in match fixing as claimed by an English newspaper, the ‘Sunday Times’.
The cricket lovers are glued with TV sets and quite a few of them go to the venues to witness the match live but the match/spot fixing has ruined their interest in the game. There has been a lot of involvement of beauties in cricket and some of them are owners in the Indian Premier League, Preity Zinta is commanding Kings XI Punjab and Shilpa Shetty has business affairs with Rajasthan Royals.
The latest wave of corruption in the game was highlighted by ‘Sunday Times’ which revealed that some Indian bookies were exploiting the match fixing by using Indian film star Nupur Mehta who extended lucrative offers to the players.
Some bookies claim that they use beautiful girls who serve drinks to different players at their leisure time. They try to get involved with the players and persuade them to follow the instructions of the bookies backed by huge money. It is further learned that even the boys carrying the drinks on ground send the players some instructions from the book makers and the fate of the match revolves at their will.
There have been rumours that the semi final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, played between India and Pakistan on March 30, 2011 at Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, Chandigarh was also fixed. India scored 260 runs for the loss of nine wickets in the allotted 50 overs and Pakistan was bowled out for 231 runs in 49.5 overs.
The home side won the important match by 29 runs but there have been few speculations as Sachin Tendulkar was dropped at least four times during his innings of 85 and Misbah-Ul-Haq demonstrated a lazy innings of 56 off 76 balls and was the last man to be dismissed.
The ICC chief executive, Haroon Logart has denied the allegations of match fixing in the semi final and confirmed that no investigation was being carried on for that encounter. He commented,
“The story carried by the newspaper, in which it has been claimed that the ICC is investigating the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 semi-final between India and Pakistan, is baseless and misleading. The ICC has no reason or evidence to require an investigation into this match. It is indeed sad for spurious claims to be made which only serve to cause doubt on the semi-final.”
The former captain of India, Sourav Ganguly also negated the reports of match fixing in the semi final and established India as a world champion.
The doll of Bollywood, Nupur Mehta also denied her involvement in any sort of match fixing and has, in fact, threatened the ‘Sunday Times’ with legal action. The actress also revealed that the picture posted in the paper was from her movie ‘Jo Bole So Nihal’. She expressed her views by saying,
“I have been accused of something that I have not done. All I would say is I am not guilty of any such thing. The picture that they have used was taken during my film, ‘Jo Bole So Nihal.”
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