Match
Fixing News
Manoj Prabhakar feels vindicated
NEW DELHI: Former Indian cricketer Manoj Prabhakar, whose allegations
in 1997 of corruption in the game were later dismissed, believes recent
developments have proved him right. On Sunday the International Cricket
Council (ICC) begin a two-day meeting in Christchurch at which the main
topic on the agenda will be allegations of bribery and corruption. Prabhakar
had written in a magazine column that he was offered 2.5 million rupees
(US$70,000) by a team-mate to sabotage a match against Pakistan in Sri
Lanka in 1994. It prompted India's cricket authorities to order an investigation
but the ensuing inquiry said it did not find any truth in the allegations.
The ICC has finally been forced to take up the issue following a spate
of allegations by other major Test players. Kirti Azad, another former
Indian Test player, commented: "If international
cricketers are turning around and saying they have been offered money,
then it shows that there is something more than meets the eye. There is
no smoke without fire." The Times of India newspaper quoted former Pakistani
captain Imran Khan as saying that match-fixing does take place. "Match-fixing
was done. How much, I've no idea. But there were some matches which were
fixed," Imran told the daily. Allegations of corruption have been around
for some time. In 1994 Australian Test trio Shane Warne, Mark Waugh and
Tim May accused Pakistan's Saleem Malik of offering them bribes to play
poorly. Those charges were dismissed by an inquiry four years ago but surfaced
again last year when the Pakistan Cricket Board
recommended a fresh investigation into match-fixing and bribery and
have been repeated again at a hearing this week. The whole issue became
further clouded last month when it was admitted publicly that four years
earlier Warne and Waugh were both fined by the Australian Cricket Board
(ACB) for accepting money from an Indian bookmaker in exchange for pitch
and weather information. Jyoti Bajpai, joint secretary to the Board of
Control for Cricket in India, refused to believe that any Indian player
could be involved, but said the developments were "disturbing".
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