JOIN US“I see the commercial use of cricket for business gains, that is going on. I am concerned, at knowledgeable comments, from serious followers of cricket about the latest venture of encouraging viewers to make ball-by-ball predictions of runs scored for economic gain in the shape of cash prizes,” Gill said.
“This is viewed as ‘openly encouraging gambling and betting’, which official bodies do not resort to, even in countries where betting is legal; all this ‘to make money and enlarge their TV viewership base,’ ” he said.
Gill said the BCCI should have thought of the damage done to the game by the 2000 match-fixing scandal before introducing such a game.
“Cricket is part of the family of sports in our country. Its current riches, do not set it apart from other games.
“The actions of the BCCI, are bound to impact the thinking in other sports, sometime or the other. We have already had, sometime back, a match-fixing scandal, in the game. It seems the ICC, had expressed concerns about such possibilities, in the IPL league.”