Jadeja wants to return
to national team
In a desperate bid to return to the national team, suspended cricketer Ajay Jadeja has requested
the Board of Control for Cricket in India to revoke its ban and allow him to
play after reviewing all match-fixing allegations against him.
In a letter to BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya, Jadeja
pleaded innocence, saying he was not guilty of the charges
levelled against him and expressed his strong desire to once
again play for the national team.
The BCCI chief confirmed having received the letter from
Jadeja, but refused to comment either on its contents or the
board's reaction to it.
"We have referred the letter to our
lawyer," Dalmiya said in Calcutta on Tuesday.
Jadeja was suspended for five years from the
national team on the basis of the CBI report on the match-fixing
scandal in December last year. He later challenged the ban
in court.
Immediately after taking over as BCCI president in
September, Dalmiya made it clear that the board would
fight the case filed by Jadeja and other suspended players. He had even suggested that board should fight the case jointly with the CBI, since the investigating agency had all the relevant papers and
had probed the match-fixing charges, naming five people
including Jadeja.
Jadeja is the first among the five persons suspended for
involvement in match-fixing to formally request the
board to review its stand.
The others, who were named by the CBI anti-corruption
commissioner K Madhavan's report, are former skipper Mohammad Azharuddin, Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma and former physio Ali Irani.
Mail Cricket Editor