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| June 5, 2000 | ||
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| MATCH
FIXING
Pitch Hunt As cricketers flung charges at each other, cricket couldn't seem to get dirtier. Thanks to a website's unorthodox investigation it just has. By Ashok
Malik Till the other day, they were Indian cricket's pride and joy; now they are its biggest blabber mouths. Each time they speak, a great game is stripped that much more of its dignity. This past week, the match-fixing scandal took three decisive turns. First, on May 24, Manoj Prabhakar, the man who started it all in 1997 when he accused a then unnamed colleague of trying to bribe him, actually named the name. It was Kapil Dev, he announced, who had offered him Rs 25 lakh to play poorly in a match against Pakistan in the 1994 Singer Cup. Since I.S. Bindra, former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), had already told CNN earlier in the month that Kapil was the alleged culprit, Prabhakar seemed to speak along expected lines. The following day, Kapil hit back at a tempestuous press briefing. He matched Prabhakar patriotic bluster for patriotic bluster, even refusing to answer a question in English at one stage because "I am proud to be an Indian". The cornerstone of his argument was not logic but, in inimitable Kapil style, true, unbridled passion. "I will not allow him to go like that. This time I will play hard ... Punjabi hoon. Maine maa ka dhudh piya hai, bakri ka nahin (I'm a Punjabi. I have drunk mother's milk, not goat's milk)". The nub of Kapil's defence was that from "day one Prabhakar did not like me". Of the people Prabhakar claimed to have taken into confidence after Kapil's supposed offer, Ravi Shastri confirmed he had been told as much. Others, from Sunil Gavaskar to one-time pace bowler Prashant Vaidya, denied Prabhakar had even mentioned anything of the sort. It was a non-stop drama so contorted as to make a badly scripted Hindi film seem like Citizen Kane. Even so the upshot was, to quote Prabhakar's deposition before the Justice Y.V. Chandrachud Committee in 1997, "I have no evidence to prove my statements." Now it appears he does. The highlight of Fallen Heroes is the conversations Prabhakar appears to have had with three people. One, Jaywant Lele, BCCI secretary. Two, Ajit Wadekar, Indian team manager in 1994. Three, cricketer Navjot Sidhu, Prabhakar's roommate on that tour. In the conversations, which the website says took place in the respective homes of the unsuspecting "interviewees", Prabhakar seems to ask them why they did not stand by him or take necessary action even though he had informed them -- or so is the inference from the transcript made available -- of Kapil's offer. The responses (see transcript excerpts) range from loquacious Lele, "There are three persons. Azhar, Jadeja and Kapil"; to wary Wadekar, "Hmm. How can I take the name in public? I had written in the report. But who reads the report"; to shy Sidhu, "Whatever he talked with you, I went away ... It did not happen in front of me. You told me later about it". The real dynamite -- which given Lele's track record is bound to be denied at the earliest -- is the BCCI secretary's observations on Kapil as (current) team coach. In the third Test against New Zealand at Ahmedabad in 1999, India was in a position to make the visiting team follow on but inexplicably chose to bat again. Cricket fans were baffled. Since the match-fixing scandal exploded, various bookies -- including many India Today has spoken to -- have hinted that some punters made much money thanks to that one strange decision. Lele, in the transcript of the chat the website says he had with Prabhakar, seems to throw fresh light on it. Some "10-15 minutes" before the New Zealand innings ended, Lele says, "me and Chandu Borde went to" Kapil. The coach apparently told them that the Indians were going to bat again. At this point, says Lele, chief selector Borde looked aghast, "What? You must give follow-on, what are you talking?" Lele quotes Kapil as insisting, "No, no, I want to bat again." When Lele later asks Sachin Tendulkar, "What happened?" the captain mutters, "The coach insisted that we should bat ... What can I do?" Next, Lele is quoted as saying, Kapil passes off the move as "the captain's decision". Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja also figure in the transcript. Rakesh Maria -- commissioner (railways), Mumbai and in 1994 chief of the city police's Crime Branch when he apparently stumbled upon a conversation that had a bookie pre-deciding a match with Indian cricketers in New Zealand -- tells the website that match-fixing is rampant, that "Anees was doing it, Chota Shakeel is doing it, Sharad Shakeel is doing it", that Azhar is "smart that way" because he keeps changing his cell phone, that the former Indian captain has "a criminal bent of mind". Where this will lead to is still unclear. So far there is little hard proof against individual cricketers. This week Ravindranath Sawani, who heads the CBI team inquiring into the scandal, said in an interview, "Ajay Sharma was in touch with the bookies and some players. He is the only one against whom we have evidence." The Sharma-Azhar connection became public when India Today broke the story ("Who is Guilty?", May 1). Further vindication is provided by the website when it quotes Ritu, Ravi Shastri's wife, as saying "Sharma's cousins" tried to barge into her house at 11 p.m. to get Ravi to "sign a contract". Her husband was then out of town. With Ritu's story the dubious aura about Sharma only turns a shade darker. Unfortunately, the transcript punctures greater reputations as well; and the flurry of charges still needs corroboration of criminal investigators. In sum, it has been a ghastly week for Indian cricket. Consider the dramatis personae. An fir was registered against Divya Nautiyal, Umesh Chandra and Manoj Prabhakar, directors of Apace Finance Leasing Ltd, at Kotwali police station, Nainital on August 9, 1999. The charge? Defrauding investors. Interestingly, the transcript quotes Lucknow-based Nautiyal as saying that he used to lend money to Sharma and Azharuddin. Take Kapil, a man who never sledged on the field -- reduced to shrieking expletives before the media. Who's the devil? Who's the angel? Nobody knows. Who's hurt? Look into a mirror.
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