Subhajit Das's Reviews > Crime Beyond 22 Yards

Book Name: Crime Beyond 22 Yards
Author Name: Sourabh Mukherjee
Format: Kindle
No of Pages: 47
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors (15/6/2018)
Blurb: The blurb section of the book is written perfectly by highlighting the base content of the book. It reveals enough for the readers to make them curious about going through the pages of the book. So, it is good and neat indeed.
Cover: The front cover of the book is catchy and it is justifying the substance of the book appropriately. The ‘Money – Cricketer – Bookie’ combination in the cover perfectly depicts what the book is all about.
Title: The title of the book is simple yet attention seeking (because of the word ‘Crime’ in it) and it will tempt the readers to think about the possible connection between ‘Crime’ and ’22 Yards’. Even the tagline (‘The scandal which shook the world’) too seems interesting. As it is complimenting the inner content of the story, hence I consider the title good and appropriate enough.
Language & narration: Language of the book is easy going, lucid enough to comprehend and the fast paced core thrilling narrating style of the author made this book a quick & pleasant read. Authentic narration of the proper connected events, made it visible for the readers to go through.
Plot: The base plot of the book is based completely on true events and the purpose is to put front the source and the era of the biggest controversial dark age of the history of cricket and that is- betting turning into match fixing. How the illegal betting racket became active and started to decide the fate of the important matches by bribing the captain of the teams and how that affected the spirit and violated the game called Cricket- is the topic discussed here. I must say that the author has taken a bold step by keeping this kind of controversial issue in front and dissect those incidents to the core.
Setting: Setting of the events mentioned in the book variant to places but mainly in India, South Africa, London, Pakistan & Sri Lanka got highlighted with the content need.
Characterization: The real life characters been discussed here according to the plot are- Ishwar Singh Redhu, Hansie Cronje, Sanjay Chawla, Herchelle Gibbs, Pieter Strydom, Boje, Rajesh Kalra, K.K.Paul, Ali Bacher, Aziz Pahad, Kepler Wessels, Pradeep Srivastava, AC Muthiah, Shaun Pollock, Hamid Cassim, Bob Woolmer, Kishan Kumar, Anees Ibrahim, Dawood Ibrahim, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Manoj Prabhakar, Chandrachud, Nasser Hussain, Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinha, Sanath Jayasurya, Shane Warne, Mark Waugh, Qayyum, Saleem Malik, Ata-ur-Rehman, Wasim Akram, Mushtaq Ahmed, Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Akram Raza, Saeed Anwar, Brian Lara, Pat Symcox, Henry Williams, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Lance Klusener, Mukesh Gupta aka MK aka John, Sunil, Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Ajay Sharma, Nayan Mongia, Kapil Dev, Nikhil Chopra, Ali Irani, Arjuna Ranatunga, Aravinda de Silva, Martin Crowe, Alec Stewart, Maurice Odumbe, Gavin Branson, Talat Al, Patrick Murphy, Clive Ricem Ian Chappel.
Theme: Betting & match fixing, thriller, cricket & betting, dark era of cricket, mystery.
Contents: The book contains the source and details of the biggest scandals of the era (early 90s to millennium 2000) of Cricket history. It is all about corruption of team captains & members, betting, and through the active participation of bookies, turning of betting into match fixing. How these controversial dark truth and scandal affected the spirit of the cricketer and completely turned down the loyalty of the cricketers and image and the actual truth behind those allegations, have been discussed here.
Govt. Officials & Delhi Police accused the captain of South African Cricket Team, Hansie Cronje for getting involved into match-fixing while playing against India, and they managed to arrange enough proof against him. When Sanjay Chawla, an active bookie in India, (connected with potentially heavy businessmen) and other sources, confessed about their involvement in this illegal activity, then Cronje did not have any option but to admit his ‘Crime’. This kind of Crime started to spread its wings far beyond 22 Yards. After a lot of agreeing and disagreeing and making many fluctuated changing statements, Cronje confessed that he was dishonest, and was involved into this fraudulent activity. He actually bound to confess because several others witnesses were coming with proper evidence and that left Cronje no choice but this. But what he revealed was the ultimate shock for the history of Indian Cricket…
Names of many heavyweights started coming into front row and these names were literally belong to the ’Heroic’ list of Cricketers; but Cronje’s shocking revelation shook the core of the cricket history. Not only names went out, but….according to the allegations, their punishment, and counter activity, investigation on them and the later truths affected the image of cricket badly. Fate of some bright stars turned upside down overnight and ended their career on a bad note.
What happened after that? Who were behind all this? Was Cronje saying the truth? What about the allegations about other ‘heavyweight’ cricketer and who were they? Were they clean? If not, then to what extent they actually in the game of greed and money? How these rackets spread their wings beyond 22 yards? To know the events in detail and the entire history of this dark era, just grab your copy of this book now and go through it.
My Verdict: Author Sourabh Mukherjee has researched a lot about this plot and the entire series of events to make it compact and prospective read for everyone. It is evident in the entire book that how details and authentic the informative details are (be it any aspect). The source of the betting racket, their activities, their mind games, operational way, how they targeted the soft spot, bribing captions and turning the fates of the match by fixing them, the racket, the bookies, scandals of different different matches, the conspiracy, political mind, strategies, confessions, law activities and its effect on the careers of accused cricketers, the face behind the curtains, the murders, suspecting the way of death, the sheer controversy, main knot of this match fixing heads, how they entire scenario of cricket started to change because of these since the early 90s, and everything is evidently described here. The greed, the crime, the disloyalty, and ultimately the unfortunate fate of knowing too deep- every single thing is portrayed here as they were like picture perfect view. It was definitely some shocking revelations for me. Enjoyed the thrill and the twists accordingly. Would like to go through future works of the same author.
Drawbacks: Drawback in the sense I have not found many, just a few tinniest typo errors and that is completely corrigible. Rest everything is perfect I can say.
Recommendation: I would like to recommend this book to avid readers out there and to everyone keen interested in the dark era of Cricket history. This book is a worthy shot for informative details. Thank you.
Rating (Overall): 4/5 Stars.