Now that the CBI has submitted its report on match fixing to the sports ministry, the question is this. Will the 152-page report in the brown envelope herald the final act in the sordid saga? Will it help us to nab the guilty men of Indian cricket so that we can pick up the pieces and, yes, move on with the game?

The significance of the CBI report lies not in the newness of its revelations but in the official status it invests them with. The agency's pinning down of the figures involved in the backroom transactions - Rs 50,000 to Rs 500,000 to throw a match - have also lost their ability to shock six months of speculation down the line.

Basically, the CBI has only confirmed Indian cricket's worst kept secret in recent times. But what happens now that it has been given the sanction of police? Surely this is a turning point in the scandal. This moment will have to be seized if the entire match-fixing scandal is not to fizzle out.

It will not be easy, as some have already pointed out, to frame cases that can stand up in court. It has been suggested that while regular cases may be framed against Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma for accumulating assets disproportionate to their known sources of wealth given that both are public servants, the rest may just get away.

Admittedly, many grey areas will have to be wrestled with. But now that the CBI has done its job, ways must be worked out to overcome these technical hurdles and the process of justice helped along to its logical conclusion.Of course, the suspects have already lost their place in the team - their punishment has already begun. But those who have loved the game so deeply and for so long deserve more. Those who have betrayed the nation's trust must be held more firmly and more openly accountable for their crime. The scandal that has paralysed Indian cricket deserves a cathartic denouement so that we can get down to salvaging what remains of the still loved game. Perhaps the first step would be to make the CBI report public.

Editorial in The Indian Express