Prabhakar says he revealed name to big gun in Govt.

MUMBAI, MAY 1. Former India all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar claims he has revealed the name of the teammate who allegedly offered him Rs.25 lakh to under-perform in the 1994 Singer Cup series in Sri Lanka to a `big gun in Government,' without disclosing who the big shot is.

In his column `Yorker' in the Website Cricketnext.Com, the Delhi- based Prabhakar says it was ``something I have been waiting for.''

``Someone well-placed in the Government will bear me out when I say that I will have no hesitation in naming the senior teammate who offered me Rs.25 lakh to under-act in the Singer Cup game against Pakistan in Colombo in 1994. He has already heard me name the central character in the drama,'' he says.

Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's announcement in Parliament on Friday last that CBI would be asked to find out if any Indian cricketers or officials have been involved in match- fixing `comes as a relief,' he says.

Prabhakar also writes in the article that Dhindsa promised him security cover when he met the Minister hours before the announcement was made in the Parliament and assured him that he (Prabhakar) would extend all co-operation to the investigating agency.

In return, Dhindsa promised him not only security cover but also to get the cricket board to release his benevolent fund that `it has held back,' Prabhakar says in the article.

``I know this is my chance to prove that I have nothing against cricket as such. After all, it is the game that has given me so much joy. I will be the last to hurt or defame cricket. On the contrary, I will be the first to unmask those who have corrupted the game,' the ex-Test all-rounder writes.

He says he was ready to believe if someone turned around and said he had made a mistake but if anyone kept committing the same mistakes again and again, and not learn from them, then they are no longer mistakes but a deliberate act. ``That's what I am campaigning against,'' he adds.

Entreating the board to come forward and help CBI to get to the bottom of it (match-fixing scandal), Prabhakar says so far it had never believed him when he said `there has been corruption in the Indian cricket team.''

``At least now since (the) police seems to have come up with something solid, BCCI should change its attitude,'' he writes. He has also refutes portions of the report given by the Justice Chandrachud Commission to the Board in 1997 after an in-house probe by the board.

``Justice Chandrachud has said that I did not report the incident during the Singer Cup in Colombo in 1994 to the team management. I can categorically state that I did bring the incident to the notice of the cricket manager and the captain without any loss of time,'' he claims.

Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajit Wadekar were the captain and cricket manager respectively of the Indian team that Prabhakar has referred to in his article.

``He (Justice Chandrachud) also says I have never complained that I was victimised for carrying out the team management's instructions conveyed to me by Nayan Mongia in the Wills World Series match at Kanpur in 1994. I was never told why I was dropped from the side. What would I complain against and who would I complain to? After all, it was the same management that I had informed about the Singer Cup incident in 1994,'' Prabhakar says.

``It hurts to know that the honourable former Chief Justice says I have no concern for truth. ``Aamir Sohail an Azhar were never captains of their teams at the same time, or in any match whatsoever,'' he wrote. ``They never tossed together.'' I am surprised because Outlook magazine had carried a picture of the two of them tossing before the World Cup match in Bangalore on March 9, 1996,'' he writes.

``In the year 1996 alone, Azhar and Sohail were captains in other matches - at Singapore (April 5) and Sharjah (April 12 and 15),'' Prabhakar points out.

``In referring to the infamous incident in Sharjah in October 1991 when we were made to chase a stiff target against the Pakistan fast bowling attack, I have never said (Sanjay) Manjrekar and I returned to the pavilion when the umpires offered us the light. We were walking away from the pitch when we were signalled by the team management to continue batting,'' he writes.

Prabhakar also quotes extensively from `Indian cricket' annual about that particular match in which the writer had castigated the team management for continuing to play in poor light conditions when even the umpires thought it was dangerous to do so.

- PTI

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