Rajasthan Royals team mentor Rahul Dravid on Monday called for stricter laws to be put in place by the country's lawmakers to deal with match-fixing and spot-fixing in the IPL.
Dravid was the captain of the Rajasthan Royals team when the spot-fixing scandal involving the team's bowlers S Sreeanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan broke two years ago.
"Irrespective of whoever is in charge of IPL, one of the most important things that we need is to have stricter laws that deal with issues like match-fixing, spot-fixing," the former India captain said. "And there should be consequences when people make mistakes and are proven guilty.
"We need to have those laws in place that in the long term act as a deterrent. For anything like robbery, theft and cheating there are laws and strict consequences (for breaking them).
"Lawmakers ensure those consequences happen. You need to go into these areas. It must be treated as a criminal offence. That's my belief. There are consequences in cricket (for wrong doing) and you pay the price."
Image tarnished
The three bowlers were arrested and banned from cricket in the country. Dravid admitted that the image of the tournament had been tarnished by some "unfortunate" incidents and claimed that while a system had been put in place by officials of the T20 league to guide the players to keep away from those corrupting the game, it should be replicated when they are not part of the IPL teams.
"There have been some unfortunate incidents relating to IPL, but there have been such incidents in cricket as a whole and IPL cannot be seen in isolation," Dravid said. "IPL attracts a lot of hype, media attention and wrong elements as well. We have to be vigilant at all times.
"We have the system, the education programme and everyone is making an effort. We have to recognise that there are undesirable elements who want to come into the game.
"One of the important things is that the IPL is just for two months and at other times the players are away from franchises. Things like education and vigilance need to be followed by not only IPL but others too," said Dravid.
