|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
'Unfair and concocted' India's Jadeja denies match-fixing involvement
Updated: Saturday November 04, 2000 10:49 PM
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja on Saturday denied any involvement in match-fixing and said the charges against him by federal investigators were "unfair and premised on evidence that is false and concocted." "At no time in my career have I been involved with match-fixing as defined in the CBI report," Jadeja said, referring to the 162-page report on match-fixing released Wednesday by the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's version of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation. Jadeja spoke to reporters at a press conference in New Delhi and released a 15-page statement that rebutted the CBI charges against him. "The verdict that has been passed against me in the report is unfair and premised on evidence that is false and concocted," Jadeja said in his statement. The CBI report named former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin, and teammates Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia, Manoj Prabhakar and Ajay Sharma for underperforming, betting and providing information to bookmakers on the pitch, weather and team strategy in test and one-day international matches. Nine foreign players were also named by a bookmaker whose confessions to the police formed the bulk of the report. The five Indian players have been temporarily banned by the Indian cricket board from playing domestic matches until an internal inquiry into the match-fixing allegations is completed. Jadeja said he hoped the 10-day ban on him and his colleagues was not the final verdict. "I hope the truth will come out." Azharuddin, one of the five accused, allegedly told the CBI that Jadeja and Nayan Mongia had helped him fix the Pepsi Cup match between India and Pakistan in 1996. Jadeja denied the charge, saying he couldn't understand why his former captain had named him. "The absurdity of the allegations against me can be gauged by the fact that I was the top scorer in that match," Jadeja said. "Moreover, Azharuddin does not appear to have offered any evidence of any kind to back up his statement," he said. Jadeja, however, accepted that he knew some of the people named by the CBI as bookies. He said he knew them as personal friends and cricket fans and had no knowledge of their involvement in betting. "I clearly wish to state that at no time have I been aware of their involvement with betting and match-fixing, and have never received any money from them in relation to match-fixing or for any other purpose." Jadeja's press conference was disrupted by activists of the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party who threw eggs at the meeting and shouted, "punish the match-fixers, punish the traitors." Angry photographers and journalists pushed out the protesters and the meeting resumed. Shiv Sena activists Friday also staged a demonstration against Azharuddin and burned his pictures. Meanwhile, a British investigative team met CBI officials in New Delhi and inquired into the charges and vidence against English batsman Alec Stewart, one of the nine foreign players named in the match-fixing report. Stewart allegedly received 5,000 pounds from Mukesh Kumar Gupta, an Indian bookie, for providing information on weather, pitch conditions and the composition of the English team in 1993.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
