"Fix this match for good luck": bookies using blind faith to fix matches

Mumbai: “Om Sai Raam. Sai Baba has chosen you for good luck. Fix today’s cricket match and forward this message to three other players in your team, and you will become Indian team’s captain within a year. If you ignore this message, someone in your family will die. Om Sai Raam!”

Many cricketers had found such messages forwarded to them on their mobile phones during the ICC world cup last year, sources say.

Experts believe that at least one ODI was fixed during the last world as cricketers were forced to fix matches under the fear of the unknown. This comes close to revelations that bookies had used good looking women to fix at least a couple of more matches.

“Bookies are using everything – money, women, threat, and superstition – to fix matches,” a source told Faking News, “They use names of various godmen, spiritual gurus, gods, goddesses, and prophets to come up with such customized messages to suit the religion and cultural leanings of a cricketer.”

Sources claim that many cricketers use such nimbu-mirchi totem to save themselves from the evil eyes of the umpire

Sources inform that at least three out of ten cricketers who receive such messages on their mobile phones react and immediately call back to fix matches.

“I don’t know what pushes them – the fear of losing someone in their family or the lure of being the captain of the team,” our source told us.

“Or maybe blind-faith,” he added.

Such startling revelations were found in a sting operation that Faking News carried out on a bookie, code named “BookieInfo”, who wanted to become famous like other bookies making claims about matches being fixed here and there.

“Boss, we have even slipped handwritten postcards with similar messages inside the hotel rooms of subcontinent cricketers who come from rural areas,” claimed BookieInfo, who told us to adjust the sting operation camera so that his face was a bit more visible and identifiable by at least his friends and clients.

“Handwritten postcards with such messages appear even more genuine to them and they agree to fix the matches,” BookieInfo claimed, though he declined to name the players who agreed to fix the matches for good luck.

BookieInfo further claimed that they had been using black magic too to fix matches if the cricketers didn’t approach them after receiving such messages.

“We tried to influence Tendulkar, who is a known devotee of Sai Baba, using such messages, but he didn’t respond,” BookieInfo revealed, “So we used black magic on him to stop him from scoring his 100^th century.”

“We’d keep a box of 100 eggs in front of his hotel room with just one egg broken,” he revealed the dark secrets of bookies, which he was sure everyone in the media and public would believe quickly.

When Faking News asked ICC and BCCI about the claims of BookieInfo, they dismissed them as being rubbish; however PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) agreed for an internal inquiry.

“We have already ordered an inquiry if our players had applied Vaseline on their whole body after an Indian actress asked them to ‘get ready for play’ and ended up dropping Tendulkar four times,” PCB chief told Faking News, “Now we’ll try to find out if they had received any postcards as well.”

Article published with permission from Faking News