IPL- A SCAM

Indian Premiere league, the cash rich T20 league is one of the major tournament played in the world. We all enjoy IPL but do you what happens behind the curtains? IPL has completed 12 seasons thus far but there is no single season of IPL which has concluded without scandals or controversies. Here are some dark facts of IPL.

CHEERLEADER’S SECRETS:

Racism is legit in IPL. Majority of dancers are foreigners, ever wondered why no indians? Here’s what an anonymous cheerleader said,“I hate the racism. Why is my team made up of 99% white girls? Why do Indians feel it’s ok to dress white girls up in skimpy outfits but they won’t let their fellow Indian women do it? It’s messed up.”

How these cheerleader’s deal with the crowd? She said,. “For the most part I can’t hear them. The music is loud enough and the accents are thick enough I’m mostly oblivious to the words. This doesn’t mean I can’t tell that there are some obvious slime-balls behind me. I try my best to ignore them. And I’ve made a personal rule for myself not to take pictures with fans unless they’re women or children. I’m not keen on becoming someone’s fap bate for the night.”

“Honestly? I put a blank stare on for the most part when I’m facing the crowd. There’s just so many nasty men making kissy faces and taking my picture that I tend to just block it all out. Often I’ll lock eyes with some nice people that are smiling and those are the people I’ll focus on for most of the game. So I haven’t really seen many funny things. If someone genuinely made me laugh though, that would be a welcome thing.”

She also revealed that they don’t get proper accommodation and food.“The first two games they were more like 1 star hotels. Cockroaches, I saw a rat and rat droppings, it was pretty bad. But we quickly spoke up and realized our manager for that trip had been skimping us and pocketing the money he was saving on a cheaper hotel. Now they’re more like 3 star. Perfectly comfortable but not over the top.” she said.

Few cheerleaders also revealed that they are treated as sex objects by fans and some cricketers. We have seen only women dancers all these years but in IPL 2019 , the cheering team of Rajasthan Royals also had men as drummers.

2012 BLACK MONEY SCAM:

On 14 May 2012, an Indian news channel India aired a string operation which accused 5 players involved in sot fixing. Reacting to the news, Indian Premier League president Rajiv Shukla immediately suspended the 5 uncapped players. The five players were, TP Sudhindra (Deccan Chargers), Mohnish Mishra (Pune Warriors), Amit Yadav , Shalabh Srivastava(Kings XI Punjab) and Abhinav Bali, Delhi cricketer .

However, the report went on to claim that none of the famous cricketers were found guilty. On the reliability of the report, Rajat Sharma, the editor-in-chief of news channel India TV quoted that the channel had no doubts about the authenticity of the sting operation and prepared to go to court.

Mohnish Mishra who was part of Pune Warriors India team for the season, admitted to have said that franchises pay black money, in a sting operation. Mishra was caught on tape saying that franchisees paid them black money and that he had received ₹15 million (US$220,000) from the later, among which ₹12 million (US$170,000) was black money. This black money was used in order to save the pursue for next auctions.

He was also suspended from his team.

2013 SPOT FIXING AND BETTING SCAM:

On 16 May 2013, 3 players of Rajasthan Royals were arrested by Delhi Police on charges of spot fixing. The three players were Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan & Ajit Chandeela.All three Players were suspended by BCCI until the inquiry in case is completed by the police.

On 24 May 2013, Gurunath Meiyappan, a top official of the Chennai Super Kings franchise and son-in-law of former BCCI president N. Srinivasanwas arrested in Mumbai by Mumbai Crime Branch in connection with illegal betting.

Though betting is illegal in India, India has the largest network of betting in the world .During an IPL season bookies now operate hundreds of well organised telephone betting exchanges across the country.A betting telephone exchange consists of as many as up to 500 phone lines of punters connected on a conference call and linked to the Live commentary audio from the stadium. This live audio is at least a ball( 5–6 seconds) ahead of the TV broadcast. Bets are then taken by bookies on a ball-by-ball basis on almost every aspect of the match in progress.

Bookies can bet starting from who will win the toss, modes of dismissal of batsmen, total score in a session and the list goes on. Spot-fixing, for example, is how many runs a bowler will give in an over, as alleged by the Delhi Police in case of Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan. Bets are even placed on something as bizarre as whether the flood lights will go off during a match, how many players will be wearing sun glasses or whether a dog will be seen running on the field.

Most of teams conduct after match parties for the players to chill and relax.These IPL after-match parties are utilised by the bookies to get close to the players and even lure them. International matches doesn’t have strategic time outs but IPL does have. Why? because the bookies say, the strategic timeout during a match works to their advantage. During that time the bookies plans the strategies of spot fixing.

WHEN HARSHA BHOGLE FACED AXE

In India, a commentator is not allowed to focus on opponent team because few people don’t like this. A commentators role is to provide neutral commentary. However, in a World T20 2016 match, Harsha Bhogle, the voice of cricket focused a bit more on opponent team which he has right to do so as a commentator. But this attitude was not accepted by few Indian Cricketers and this embarked controversy and thus he was removed from the commentary team of IPL.

MOLESTATION CHARGES:

During 2012 edition,US citizen Zohal Hamid accused Royal Challengers Bangalore player Luke Pomersbach for molesting her. Although after much controversy she dropped the charges against him. Once, Indian playback singer Chinmayi Sripaada shared a post from a follower who recalled an incident where a cricketer sexually assaulted the woman in his hotel room in Mumbai when she was searching for her friend. The cricketer invited her to his room saying that her friend was there. In no position to leave the room, she was finally saved when the hotel staff came in to replenish the bar. She managed to leave the room after the staff left.

Thus, we can say, besides Entertainment, IPL is just surrounded by scams.

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