On Sunday, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly said that a bookie had approached a player during the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament. However, the incident had been reported to the Board’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU).
“Even in the Syed Mushtaq, I was told that one of the players was approached but I don’t know the exact name. But there was an approach made and he reported it,” Sourav Ganguly said at a press conference after the BCCI’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). “That’s (approach) not the problem, that’s not wrong. What is wrong is what happens after they get approached.”
Sourav Ganguly revealed this when he was asked about the match-fixing scandals of the Tamil Nadu Premier League and Karnataka Premier League. In September, the police in Tamil Nadu have got the clues of match-fixing racket in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. Even a match-fixing scandal also there in the Karnataka Premier League last month, from where police arrested an international bookie and a few players.
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Ganguly said it is “very hard for the Board to stop tournaments, because somebody is just approached” but admitted that “in some of the states it has gone to the next level”.
“We have dealt with it (in case of TNPL and KPL). We have spoken to respective states. The KPL is on hold now till all these gets cleared. There are tournaments in Chennai, Saurashtra and Mumbai. For Saurashtra and Mumbai, there has not been any complaints, but in Chennai there have been couple of complaints, but we will deal with it,” he added.
He added that the Board will have to strengthen its Anti-Corruption Unit to deal with this kind of problems in future.
“Nobody wants this, it doesn’t help anyone. And we will put a system at the two leagues in which betting and fixing happened, KPL is on hold and Chennai (TNPL) has suspended the two franchises. We have to get anti-corruption system right, try and put the best anti-corruption, try and make it even stronger and assess it. If it doesn’t work or dosen’t stop, we will have to think of something else,” Sourav Ganguly concluded.
