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The Chandrachud Report

PART I

A. Sachin Tendulkar:

I do not believe that the matches are fixed or can be fixed. While playing the game of cricket, you never know what is in store for you, as you know in an examination when you have read your books and answer the questions. There is no prescribed syllabus in a sport. There are surprises galore. Within my knowledge, no matches have ever been fixed. I never got the feeling that any of my teammates deliberately played a bad shot to get out. Speaking of me I am so made that I decide to take an occasional risk which works most of the times but fails occasionally. A batsman, who can deliberately get out, would need to be a super technician. He will use his expertise for playing well rather than forgetting out. We now make such handsome money merely by playing for the country, that it would be suicidal for any player to play badly deliberately. For example, between May 1996 and May 1997 we played 15 International matches for which, each of us received a sum of rupees forty lakhs from BCCI. I feel it is impossible to believe that any player would risk being dropped out of the team for deliberate bad play and lose not only the honour of playing for his country but the opportunity to earn so much money by lawful means.

The statements made by Manoj Prabhakar have no foundation. He has made a specific allegation that in the Indo-Pak match which was played in Sri Lanka in the Singer Cup Series in 1994, a teammate had offered him Rs.25 lakhs to play badly. If Manoj had the courage to say this, he should have had the courage to name the player.

B. Mohammed Azharuddin:

I do not think that any match can be fixed. It has taken me 14 long years to build up some reputation as a player. I cannot think of destroying by playing badly with a deliberate motive.

It is true that I dress well. I also like to live in a good style. I have a house in Hyderabad and a flat in Bombay. My accounts are quite clear. The tax authorities are the best judges of that. I do not know if there is betting in cricket, but I know this for certain that none of my teammates bets.

C. Nayan Mongia:

Matches are not fixed at all. I have been playing Test cricket since November-December 1993. I came to know about the expression "Fixing of matches" from newspapers only. As a member of the Indian team, I have never experienced it. The truth is that we are playing so much cricket these days that there are more ups and downs in individual performance now than before. In 1996-97, we played 30-35 one-dayers and 11-12 test matches. We were away from home for about 5 months.

I think it crazy that any player will bet to lose. I have never heard even a whisper of it from any teammate. We spend years and years to train ourselves and are lucky to be selected in the national team. Then to think that we will bet to lose makes no sense. Thereby, we will ruin and sacrifice all that we have achieved.

We earn about rupees forty lakhs an year, officially from the BCCI. In addition we make quite some money in other lawful ways as in advertisements. There is no need to look beyond it. The team meets very often, we are together for long hours, we discuss our strategy but, never is there even a whisper of fixing a match or of betting.

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