HOWZATT? Manoj Prabhakar NEW DELHI, June 1: Former Indian cricketer Manoj Prabhakar has said that he was offered money by a team-mate to throw away a one-day match against Pakistan. ``Before the India-Pakistan match in Sri Lanka for the Singer Cup in 1994, I was offered Rs 25 lakh by an Indian team member for sabotaging the match in Pakistan's favour,'' the allrounder says.In a signed statement which appears in the latest issue of the newsmagazine, Outlook, and released today, the former India opening bowler has said that he was told by a team-mate to play below his usual standards. ``I asked him to get out of my room. I told him I would never do what he was telling me to do. Because of this I soon acquired the tag of a spoilsport in that group,'' says Prabhakar. (He says that he was caught between the west and north groups in the team because of his confusing surname and got to play less cricket than he deserved to.)Prabhakar says that was not the only time he was offered money to play badly. ``There are times that things are so obvious the entire nation has watched it happen. In Kanpur when we were chasing the West Indies score, Nayan Mongia came in to bat and conveyed the management's instructions to try and get as close to the target. The resultant hullabaloo about my going slow should be directed at the team management and not me as I was doing so under their instructions.'' Manoj Prabhakar also says that the rumours which were rife about the Indian team's performance during the 1987 World Cup sometimes seemed so obvious that they ``left him wondering''. ``I also distinctly remember that match at Sharjah in 1991 when I was at the crease with Sanjay Manjrekar, when we decided to walk off because of failing light. To our surprise, we received signal from the team management to play on. This decision still baffles and angers me,'' Prabhakar says. The former Delhi and India cricketer adds that games are increasingly fixed and sponsors and bookies have started exerting pressure. ``I remember the incident at Sharjah when Aamir Sohail and Mohammed Azharuddin went out to toss and both came back claiming that the other had won it,'' he says.
