British daily claims player was seen with woman associated with punter in Lanka, but BCCI brushed report under the carpet; also says ICC is probing the matter.
His team had just won a rain-curtailed one-day series against Australia, 1-0, but Suresh Raina was not looking particularly chirpy when he boarded the team bus on Sunday afternoon. He signed a few autographs but avoided eye contact with the waiting mediapersons at the team hotel. He knew he was in an uncomfortable spotlight.
But more than him, his cricket board has been caught in an embarrassing fix.
Months after Pakistan’s cricketers were netted by the British media, another report, this time in The Sunday Times of London, points a finger at the Indian cricketing establishment.
The British media report claims that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) kept quiet about a report of Raina being seen in the company of a woman associated with an illegal bookmaker. The report has linked Raina to a woman, who is supposedly close to a bookie in Sri Lanka.
It says the anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU) of the International Cricket Council (ICC) is probing why the BCCI tried to hush up the matter.
However, it was made clear in the report that the Chennai Super Kings batsman is not suspected of any wrongdoing, the paper quoted a senior ICC source as saying.
The incident allegedly took place during India’s tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year. But it was not mentioned if it took place during the tour in September or in June when the Asia Cup was held.
According to the report, with the heightened security concerns following the 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Pakistan, the Sri Lankans deputed a former general to look after the Indian team. The CCTV cameras installed in the Indian team hotel showed that on more than one night, Raina was in the company of a woman known to be an associate of a man allegedly linked to a bookmaker.
A report, including the CCTV footage, was submitted by the Sri Lankan Cricket Board (SLCB) to its Indian counterpart. According to the report, it is the reaction of the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan that has led to the ICC investigation. Instead of acting on the report, Srinivasan is alleged to have got the Sri Lankans withdraw it. Raina plays for Srinivasan’s Chennai Super Kings.
The investigation, led by ACSU head Ravi Sawani, is believed to be looking into why the Sri Lankans shared the report with the BCCI first when under ICC anti-corruption rules it should have gone straight to the world governing body, the newspaper said.
According to the newspaper, this comes against a background of much talk in India that it was during IPL matches that spot-fixing re-emerged as a major problem.
When asked recently about the speculations of match-fixing in the IPL, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said, “The first two editions were not policed by the ACSU. But they realised later on that they perhaps needed more support. The last one was the first time when they fully engaged the ACSU. And we will be engaged in the next IPL season as well.”
An ICC spokesman refused to comment on the incident saying, “We don’t comment on any investigation.” The BCCI dismissed the report. “The BCCI would like to clarify that it has received no such report from SLC. The claims being made by a section of the media are totally baseless and false,” said Srinivasan in a release.
When contacted, SLC secretary Nishant Ranatunga said it is news to him as well. “We’re not aware of any such incidents and we have not submitted any report to the BCCI,” he said. India team manager Ranjib Biswal, too, dismissed the report.
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