I always had suspicion on matches between India and Pakistan specially played in Indian subcontinent, nevertheless like everyone I watched those matches. After IPL the suspicion on the players grew in me. I was never a fan of IPL. Never supported any team. Never watched full match. And I was happy when the authorities found irregularities in player conducts , spot fixing etc . But I don't know how these fixes and betting works. So for me all those fixing news are just news. But this book gave me clear view of what is going on in Indian betting market.
I started this book just before quarter finals of the World Cup 2015, fascinated from beginning to end and I finished the book just before first semi-finals. The author is a specialist journalist in sports betting and knew the mathematics involved in it. Unlike other writers , he travelled all the way to India to get first hand experience with those involved in it. The result is this wonderful book.The book explains clearly myriad working of the illegal betting (the types of bets), syndicates , punters etc.
The book is divided into three parts each explaining the authors takes on different issues on the problem of match fixing and happenings in betting in world cricket, specially Indian market. The author befriends the Vinay and Parthiv , the bookies, through twitter. These two explains him how Indian betting market works. During World Cup 2011 semi-final match between India and pakistan he received 'script' of the match from Parthiv. A script of things to happen in the match. To his surprise and shock , the match is played out almost the same as in the script. This made him to travel and search more about betting and fixing in India.
For me too , the 'script' - "Bookie update... India will bat first and score over 260, 3 wickets fall within the first 15 overs, pak will cruise to 100, then lose 2 quick wickets, at 150 they will be 5 down and crumble and lose by a margin of 20 runs" - was real shock. I watched the match again after reading this ,oops to my shock its almost the same . What to say!!
The author asks anyone he meets in India about that particular match but to his dismay no one gave him any detail , even the Pakistan spy too, who promised him about more details. Though in later chapters the author dismantle each part of the script with the match and trying to find the probability of fixing , he could not conclude anything but one can not eliminate the fixing suspicion.
Though betting is illegal in India , the way it operates makes one wonder what the authorities and BCCI doing. This book clearly says that the Indian betting market is well organized and structured. The syndicates runs the whole show with small players on the ground. These syndicates creates fear among the bookies,players and other participants to make these illegal activities discreet. The way these bookies operates on the match day - wow- non stop running commentary of the odds
In Indian industry , a punter can bet on four - (Lambi , Brackets ,Lagna and Khana) bet on runs in a innings, bet on runs scored in a given time (for .eg 10 over period), bet on team to win and bet on team to lose. The author also found that in India spot fixing like the 'no ball' episode( sting operation by News of the World) during Pakistan England match does not exist.The analysis of spot fixing scandal by the author is very well researched and written and the experience in India helped him a lot in it.
The author thinks legalizing betting and gambling will reduce the problems but cricketers and administrators needs to accept the problem and take effort to sort it out. The author also stereotypes iIndians as money obsessed. His interview with various Indian authorities gives reader another dimension of this illegal activities. But the most fascinating interview of all is the one with Lalit Modi. The outspoken former IPL chairman was as straight as possible, though he did not admit anything was wrong with first couple of seasons of IPL.
This book is a must read for all the cricket lovers specially Indian cricket fans. As the book says most of the cricketers are clean and we believe that ICC and other boards make concrete efforts to root out this evil from the gentlemen's game.
More about Pakistan Spot fixing case
CBI report on match fixing -2000
Qayyum Report - 2000
King Commission Report
Justice Cook's sentencing
Anti Corruption of Code for Participants
ACSU
How does ACSU work
ECB Anti Corruption documents
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