"Was the match fixed?" the headline screamed. Pat Symcox, the former SouthAfrican offspinner, insinuated in the Indian news magazine, Outlook, that India threw their second game against Kenya in the current triangular series.

Symcox spoke of how "The team was dramatically changed to accommodate players who aren't going to be playing in the final." He added: "On a day when South Africa received a mixed verdict on the Hansie Cronje judgment, whispers all around suggested that … something sinister was lurking around the St George's change-rooms." The ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit is looking into the match.

Symcox's allegations can be refuted easily. He finds it befuddling that the Indians put out a less-than-full-strength team, but the fact remains that the five men around whom their side revolves -- Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh -- all played in the match, and there isn't much to choose between the fringe players anyway. In any case, if they did play a slightly weaker team, they could just about be accused of over-confidence. But dishonesty?

Symcox implies that the Kenyans were "nothing more than club cricketers", and did not deserve their flattering figures. That is utter nonsense, as anybody who saw the match would attest. Joseph Angara was quite magnificent, and the rest of the bowlers bowled superbly within their limitations.

Symcox also casts aspersions on Tendulkar and Ganguly. He finds it odd that "Tendulkar faced 20 deliveries and only managed to get three runs against a popgun attack." This is outrageous, not just for denying credit to the Kenyans, but for making suggestions that two of India's cleanest-ever cricketers could be involved in some form of subterfuge. The motives of Symcox, who had bowling averages of 54 against India in both Tests and one-day internationals, can only be guessed at. Whatever his motives, there is stunning hypocrisy at work here. When Cronje offered the entire team over $200,000 to throw the Mumbai one-dayer in 1996, Symcox was on record as saying that "some guys including myself said it was a lot of money and we should look at it".

Perhaps Symcox has a hidden agenda here. The headline of a recent column for Outlook was "Revenge for Hansie." Many in South Africa like to believe that Cronje was a victim of a subcontinental malaise, a gullible Christian lured into evil-doing by cunning mercenaries, the poor white boy who suffered for a slight indiscretion while the truly wicked souls got away. Thus, instead of a feeling of remorse, there is one of injury.

But these are petty matters. What is a bigger issue at hand is why we still let the match-fixing imbroglio cloud our judgment of the game. Upsets are integral to the joy of watching sports, especially cricket; some of the greatest moments in cricketing history have been upsets. Did India beat West Indies in the 1983 World Cup because Clive Lloyd and his men compromised themselves? In the same World Cup, did the Australians lose to Zimbabwe because Kim Hughes succumbed to the lure of lucre? It would be scandalous to make such accusations against those men. So why entertain such loose talk against the players of today? All of this does a great disservice to the sport, not to mention the winning team in each case.

India will lose many matches in years to come, as will every other team in every sport. Cronje and his cronies will keep whimpering, investigative commissions will linger on, and doubts will continue to be expressed about certain matches played in the 1990s. But the cricket-viewing public has to put it behind them and get on with life. The damage caused to the game by the scandal was great, but it will be far greater if we let it linger, and view all the good in the world through the prism of the bad.

Amit Varma is assistant editor of Wisden.com India.

Read Pat Symcox's article in its entirety in Outlook magazine.

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