ng Azhar, whom they paid from time to time.
CAPTAIN BOOKIES’ BEST BET
FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Nov. 1:
Azharuddin may have betrayed his country, but never the match-fixers.
Unlike Manoj Prabhakar, who often let down the nation as well as the men
who were paying him off.
Bookie kingpin Mukesh Gupta alias MK told as much to the CBI during his
interrogation which gave the bureau a great deal of insight into the
murky world of fixers and punters.
Azhar’s “loyalty” made him the punters’ most-trusted client. As the CBI
says: “It is clear that Azharuddin contributed substantially towards the
expanding bookie-player nexus in Indian cricket. The enquiry has
disclosed that he received large sums of money from the betting
syndicates to fix matches. There is also evidence which discloses that
he roped in other players also to fix matches which resulted in this
malaise making further inroads into Indian cricket.”
MK’s revelations coupled with supporting evidence from Ajay Sharma has
led the CBI to conclude that “Azharuddin was paid at least Rs 50 lakh
initially by MK to fix matches”.
The bookie told the investigating agency that Azhar had specifically
agreed to “do” some matches during the Titan Cup in 1996. But the final,
which India won defeating South Africa, did not turn out as arranged
with Azhar.
According to MK, after the Titan Cup final, he, along with Ajay Sharma,
visited Hyderabad and asked Azhar to make up for the “losses” suffered
by him. Azhar agreed.
MK goes on to say that Azhar then gave him information about two Tests
at Ahmedabad and Calcutta during the 1996 series against South Africa
which helped him partially recover his losses.
This is what distinguishes Azhar from other players.
As MK points out elsewhere, Prabhakar did not go by the adage that there
should be honesty among thieves. The cricketer had misinformed him about
the probable outcome of matches sometime in the mid-nineties.
During his interrogation, Azhar has accepted receiving money from MK to
fix some matches. Azhar has said he “did” only two matches for MK — the
Titan Cup match in 1996 at Rajkot and “some” match during the Pepsi Asia
Cup in Sri Lanka in 1997.
This “admission” of Azhar, according to the CBI, that he did only two
matches for MK during this period does not tally with the amount of
money he received from the bookie.
MK has also said that during the 1997 Sahara Cup in Toronto, Sangeeta
Bijlani used to provide him “information” over cellphone which, he told
the CBI, usually turned out to be wrong.
Not just MK, Azhar was also close to other bookies like Ajay Gupta.
Azhar initially accepted that he met Ajay Gupta for help in getting a
petrol outlet allotted at Bangalore, but later admitted that the punter
had approached him to fix some matches. Ajay Sharma told the CBI that on
Azhar’s behalf, he had collected Rs 15 lakh from Ajay Gupta and
deposited the money in the locker of the former captain at Delhi’s Taj
Palace hotel.
Azhar also said during his questioning that underworld don Abu Salem had
called him up a couple of times to fix matches, but he had refused.
Ali Irani, the former physio, said Azhar had told him once that he was
“doing” matches for Anees Ibrahim, brother of Dawood and, hence, he
cannot “do with anyone else”.
Prabhakar, who blew the whistle, may have tried to hoodwink everyone by
insisting he was clean. But the CBI believes that Prabhakar, both during
his playing days and even after retirement, had “linkages with a number
of bookies/punters”.
There is also evidence that he underperformed and passed on information
and introduced other players to betting syndicates.