Can Indians ever forgive Mohammad Azharuddin?

Mohammad Azharuddin batting for India against England in 1990

A recent survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) states that an urban Indian household pays around Rs 4,400 as bribe annually. But when it comes to judging other people the barometer changes and we all try to become the ideal honest citizen. The same Indian who would not mind paying few thousand rupees as bribe to get his day-to-day work done, will sit in the comfort of his living room and give a lecture on how corruption is destroying India.

Take the case of former Indian skipper, Mohammad Azharuddin. He has been given a clean chit by the judicial body and the BCCI has lifted the life ban which was imposed on him. But he is still asked only one question - “Did you fix matches?”

Irrespective of the fact whether Azhar bhai (as he is fondly called) was guilty of match-fixing or not, in my opinion he has got his share of punishment – such punishment as should be enough to deter any youngster from getting involved with match-fixing.

To debate if Azhar was guilty or not is a null question, nor am I suggesting that one should be lenient on wrong doers. My only point is that one allegation (yes in this case it was just an allegation which has not been proven till date) should not undo all the good work that the person had done.

Glittering career tarnished in single blow

Now here is a man whose glittering cricket career was finished due to match fixing allegations and since then he has not been able to do anything remotely related with cricket. Whereas several of his teammates who could achieve only a fraction of his cricketing success are making a living out of cricket commentary, writing etc. Cricket fans of 1980s & 1990s will recall that he was probably the biggest thing to have happened to Indian cricket since the great Sunil Gavaskar.

And his stardom continued even after the arrival of another legend Sachin Tendulkar.

To refresh your memory, Azhar burst on to the cricketing stage by hitting three consecutive centuries in his first three Test matches and is the only batsman to do this till date. He went on to represent India in 99 Test matches and 334 ODIs. He was not only a great batsman who made wristy flicks his very own much before fellow Hyderabadi VVS Laxman, but he was also one of the best fielders that India has ever produced. He was also the most successful Indian captain in both Test matches and ODIs before the era of Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni.

But in spite of all this, the first thing that comes to minds of cricket fans when Azhar’s name is mentioned is match-fixing. In a recent interview, Azhar mentioned that he does not have many fans left and that he has to remind people that he used to bat decently too. Match fixing was the last impression that he left the cricket field with, but can we just wipe off his lovely flicks and the huge sixes that he hit all around the world from our memories?

How South Africans remember Cronje

The issue here lies in the mindset of us Indians. Cricket being a religion in our country, we want our cricketers to be gods and gods of course do not err. So, our cricketers in addition to being great in their own field should also possess qualities such as to be labelled Maryada Puroushottama (the perfect man like Lord Ram). We often forget, “The world is full of imperfections ..but still it’s a perfect creation”.

It would appear that former South African captain Hansie Cronje has now been forgiven by the South Africans a decade since his tragic death. His former teammate Fannie de Villers summarised Cronje’s contribution aptly, saying, “Cronje had done 90 percent good and 10 percent bad. Anyone who influenced the scales like that, will be forgiven”.

This is in spite of the fact that Cronje had confessed to fixing matches. So, can we Indians also become a bit more generous and forgive Azhar bhai in his lifetime?