Calcutta, July 10: Former ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya categorically denied the statement attributed to him in media reports today that some players were definitely involved in match fixing and dismissed the statement as being "distorted and contradictory". "In the first place, tehelka.com did not approach me for an interview. I was interviewed by a journalist, who claimed to be the Delhi correspondent of a Hong Kong based English newspaper", Dalmiya said. "He (the journalist) had inquired whether it ever appeared to me that matches were fixed. My reply was that except the Kanpur match in 1994, it never seemed to me that matches could be fixed," Dalmiya said. In the match between India and West Indies in October 1994, Manoj Prabhakar and Nayan Mongia indulged in slow batting even though India had a chance to win the match. Dalmiya felt that it was not proper for anyone, irrespective of his position, to pass a judgement especially when the inquiry was on. "it would be a rather immature act to form an opinion till such time that the inquiry report is published," he said. Dalmiya said that he was writing to Tehelka.com to send him, against necessary payment, the cassettes of the interviews taken by them. "I wish to make it clear that after I receive the cassettes, these would be sent for examination to verify how much of their contents were doctored or distorted," Dalmiya said.
