Hanky-panky going on in Karnataka Premier League, says BCCI anti-corruption consultant Neeraj Kumar

“Now having joined the BCCI, I see so much of it happening. Fortunately, I can say with some amount of authority and conviction that our national team at this point of time is above board. But in the second rung and third rung, the B tiers and C tiers, the premier leagues, including the Karnataka Premier League a lot of hanky panky goes on,” the retired IPS officer said.

Despite the match-fixing cases in the year 2000, where South African cricketer Cronje confessed and several top Indian cricketers were handed life bans and the 2013 IPL spot fixing case where S Sreesanth and others were arrested, corruption is rampant, he said.

“There is corruption even now. There is more corruption in some parts of the world – Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and in tier B and C cities in local tournaments,” Neeraj Kumar said.

In the 2015 IPL there was some “hanky panky” but it was stopped and a whole racket was busted after players reported that they were approached by bookies, he said. The BCCI’s anti corruption consultant, who was in Bengaluru for the second India- Australia cricket test match, was speaking at the release of a Kannada translation of his 2015 book ‘Dial D for Don’.

Neeraj Kumar said that the two big match fixing investigations occurred by chance while police were monitoring other activities like extortion and the underworld and there is still no clear picture on “what actually goes on behind the scenes”.