The late arrival of the West Indies cricket team kits to Nagpur for the
Jan 21 cricket match with India has come under scanner as an International
Cricket Council (ICC) team Monday began probing the suspected betting scandal
here.
A team of the anti-corruption and security wing of the ICC,
which arrived here Sunday night, was looking at the movement of the Caribbean
cricket team kits from Lahore to Nagpur via Mumbai, city police chief S.P.S.
Yadav told reporters here Monday.
While the West Indian cricket team had arrived here for the
first ODI with India two days prior to the match, their kits arrived at the
Vidarbha Cricket Association ground only after the toss, causing consternation
among the cricket players. The matter did not, however, come out into the open
then or later.
The police commissioner said the kits, which the Caribbean
cricket players had left behind in Lahore after playing an ODI series with Pakistan,
were brought to Mumbai by T&T Couriers Jan 20 while the team came in from
the West Indies a day earlier. The courier company could, however, make it to
Nagpur only the next day morning as they missed the evening flights from Mumbai
that day.
The delay in the arrival of the kits led to the West Indies
cricket team manager Clive Lloyd making frantic calls to the courier
company`s offices almost from the time the team arrived here, Yadav said, adding
that police had given these details to the ICC investigators during their
day-long discussions.
Refusing to give further details of the discussions that he
and his senior colleagues had with the ICC team, Yadav said he had sought the
central government`s permission to share information and documents with the
international body.
Earlier in the day, the ICC team began investigations into
the telephonic conversations between West Indies cricket player Marlon Samuels
and bookie Mukesh Kochchar, tapped by the Nagpur police, before the Jan 21 tie.
The ICC team led by its regional security manager N.S. Virk
comprises chief investigator Jeff Rees and senior investigator Allan Peacock
besides communication manager Brian Royd. The team will continue their investigations
Tuesday.
Royd said they will investigate the possible underworld involvement
in the betting attempt along with other aspects of the matter.
"We neither rule in nor rule out the underworld connection; we`ll look
at everything during our investigations," he told reporters before the
team got closeted with senior cops at the police gymkhana here.
"We will be able to tell you something only after completing our job here,"
he said.
The investigations are important in view of the world cup event
next month, Reid said adding, "the danger (of betting attempts) is alive
and we have to be extra cautious."
The ICC investigators had extensive discussions with Joint
Police Commissioner (Crime) Dr. Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay and Deputy Commissioner
of Police Amitesh Kumar who conducted the phone tapping.
The city police tapped the telephonic conversations that took
place between Jan 19 and Jan 20 after being tipped off about it by a source
but informed the Indian cricket board and ICC about it only a fortnight later
- Feb 7.
The ICC apparently had no inkling of anything that transpired
between Kochchar and Samuels before police informed the world cricketing body
about it through the Indian cricket board.
Yadav had, however, told reporters Feb 8 that the ICC`s anti-corruption
unit members were here during the match and that police were in touch with them.
While police have clarified that they did not find any evidence
of betting or match fixing in the entire episode and the West Indian cricket
captain Brian Lara has ruled out any such possibility, the very fact that the
ICC probe team is here to talk to police lends credence to the suspicion that
there could be more to the Kochchar-Samuels conversations than a mere violation
of code of conduct.
|
