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This is an archive article published on April 13, 2000

I had reprimanded 3 Indian players for betting on matches, says IS Bindra

NEW DELHI, APRIL 12: Inderjit Singh Bindra, a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has made some sensatio...

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NEW DELHI, APRIL 12: Inderjit Singh Bindra, a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has made some sensational disclosures in a television programme to be shown on Star TV on Saturday. He said that during his tenure as President, he had to reprimand three Indian players for “betting” on the matches they were playing.

Refusing to name the players, Bindra said, he is “convinced that Indian cricketers have indulged in wrong doings and only a probe by CBI or a judicial commission having statutory powers can come out with true facts”.

Refuting the BCCI stand that they have not been provided with any specific incidents, Bindra came out with more startling facts. “Two managers, a physio and a coach of the team have in the past told the Board that they suspect a few players not being `clean’ yet the Board did not deem it fit to take any action.”

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The vice-president of the Board and its representative on the programme, Kamal Morarka, however refuted all the charges and said there was no need for the Board to reopen the probe. “If the people who have levelled allegations are not willing to come up with the names, what can we do?” he said.

Bindra, taking full responsibility for commercialising the game and not realising at that time that it will also have a negative fallout, put the blame on his successors for letting things go out of hand. “I had commercialised the game, these people have privatised it. Today middlemen are making more money than the Board,” he said on the programme.

“Match-fixing has become like a cancer and only a proper surgery will prevent it from destroying Indian cricket completely,” Bindra said.

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