India-Pakistan WC Semi-final was fixed

The news of India-Pakistan World Cup Semi-final match being fixed came as a shock to many Indian cricket fans. The news was broken by the Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom. The news has certainly saddened cricket buffs from the sub-continent, especially India. It is a real shocker and has put the entire cricketing world in the grip of match fixing once again.

There were in all five strong allegations about why it can prove that the Mohali match was fixed. Let us have a look at those five points:

• The Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar was given four lives. Yes, he was dropped as many as four times. How costly it can be to drop the catches of a batsman of Tendulkar’s caliber. Tendulkar went on to score 85 runs and it was then that he was finally out.
• Captain M S Dhoni was also given a life after his catch was spilled. Mahi scored 25 runs in the match.
• Pakistani bowler Umar Gul was also in the thick of the action, according to the reports. The otherwise impressive Gul did not complete his full quota of ten overs. In the eight overs he bowled, he gave away as many as 69 runs without picking up a single wicket.
• Misbah-Ul-Haq was accused of batting slow. The middle-order batsman scored 56 runs in 76 balls. This scoring rate is said to be unlike his batting nature.
• Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi took the third powerplay too late.

These five things have been mentioned in the news report. The International Cricket Council, (ICC) has taken a serious note of this report and might most probably go for the enquiry of the match.
So what decision will the ICC take? At no cost can they go back on the final result of the match. It is history now and the ICC World Cup will sit in India’s kitty until the next World Cup.