Sunrisers Hyderabad player Ashish Reddy's brother brokered fixing, reveals bookie Patel

One of the bookies who was arrested by the Delhi police special cell has told the Mumbai crime branch that he had met four players from Sunrisers Hyderabad in Pune in April and discussed fixing a match between Hyderabad and Pune Warriors. The brother of a player from the Hyderabad team was the ‘mediator’ to fix the match.

Chandresh Patel, 34, a share-broker from Four Bungalows in Andheri, said that in March 2013, his Ahmedabad-based friend Pravin Thakkar alias Pintu introduced him to his financer friend Jeetu Jain and one Mannan, who claimed to be a friend of cricketer Amit Singh.

“My Mumbai-based friend Vinni had introduced me to his friends Yusuf and Amir. In the last week of March, Yusuf gave me Amir’s number, who wanted to discuss about IPL matches with me. Amir told me to come to Hyderabad to fix an IPL match. When I told Jeetu about this discussion, he asked me to take along Pravin. I went to Hyderabad with Pravin and Yusuf. Amir had arranged for a stay in a hotel for us,” Patel said in his statement.

Amir told them in Hyderabad that Rs6 crore was needed to fix an IPL match and this was communicated to Jeetu. Jeetu told them to finalise the deal after meeting the players. “Amir told us that he would arrange a meeting with the players on April 16 in Pune. He also asked for Rs50 lakh advance. I was later told by Pravin that Jeetu had sent Rs32 lakh to Amir. On April 16, Jeetu, Pravin, Yusuf and I went to Pune. Amir’s friend Sunil introduced us to Sunrisers Hyderabad players Perera, Vihari, Karan Sharma, Ashish Reddy and his brother Pritam Reddy in a five-star hotel,” said Patel in his statement.

Patel told Pritam that he wanted Sunrisers to lose the match against Pune Warriors on April 17 in Pune. “I told him the score should not go beyond 60 runs in 10 overs and the aggregate score should not go beyond 140 runs in 20 overs. Pritam told me that he would finalise everything and tell Amir. We left for Mumbai after that,” his statement reads.

The next day, Amir called Patel and said everything has been finalised, however, the Hyderabad team lost the match. “The others and I lost the bet as the Sunrisers won the match which was not the plan. Amir later demanded money from me, which I refused. He even threatened me,” Patel said. He was allegedly instrumental in meeting some of the Rajasthan Royals team players and trying to rope them in fixing matches.