Some players are definitely involved, says Dalmiya

NEW DELHI, JULY 9. The former president of the International Cricket Council, Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya, today said some players were definitely involved in the match-fixing scandal.

In his first interview after stepping down as the ICC president, Mr. Dalmiya told Internet portal, Tehelka.Com, that 10 to 15 per cent of the blame should go to the players and the rest to bookies, adding that he had severed all links with the ICC.

He said it was for the CBI and the Government to decide whether or not to have an open, King Commission-type of inquiry. He rejected allegations that he had misused his position as ICC president to help certain business houses. ``There is no specific charge against me. But yes, my role in some negotiations has been questioned and I have been accused of helping World Tel.''

Mr. Dalmiya claimed that two publications, which had levelled charges against him had given an undertaking in the Calcutta High Court that they would not write damaging articles against him until the defamation case was disposed of.

Asked if it had never struck him, even once, as an astute businessman, that some players were throwing away matches for money, Mr. Dalmiya said it had happened only once, during the India vs West Indies one day International tie in October 1994. Prabhakar and Mongia were dropped, but they returned after tendering an unqualified apology.

``May be I was too naive, but except on that occasion, never did it occur to me that matches were actually being fixed. In hindsight, it appears that instead of the Chanderchud Commission we should have approached the Government to institute a CBI inquiry, he said.

- UNI

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