BCCI Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chief Shabbir Hussain Shekhadam Khandwawala has revealed that the recently-suspended edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) witnessed potential corruptors bribing an alleged cleaner at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla ground for doing ‘court siding’ which helps ball-to-ball betting.
The new method of fixing was observed during one of the IPL games at New Delhi where a designated cleaner made use of the time lag between actual match action and live TV coverage to help in ball-by-ball betting, which is also known as court siding or pitch siding. Pitch-siding is the practice of transmitting information from sporting events for the purpose of gambling or directly placing bets.
As per the quotes in PTI, BCCI ACU chief said, “One of my ACU officers caught a person and handed over the details to Delhi Police. While that particular offender managed to flee leaving behind his two mobile phones, ACU lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police. We are thankful to Delhi Police that in a separate incident they caught two other persons from the Kotla on ACU tip-off.”
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The Delhi Police arrested a couple fo persons with fake accreditation cards during the IPL match between Rajasthan Royals (RR) and SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on 2 May.
Shabbir Hussain further explained, “So on two separate days, these people managed to get access to Kotla. The one who fled came in the garb of a cleaner. However, we have all his details as he was employed for the tournament. His Aadhar Card details have been handed over to Delhi Police. I am confident that he will be nabbed in a day or two. He is a small fry working for a couple of hundred or some thousand bucks maybe.”
But the ACU chief also agreed that lower-rung staff might be used by a bigger syndicate since, because of COVID-19, there is no access to hotels under the bio-secure bubbles.
Explaining how the cleaning staff came under the radar, BCCI ACU chief said, “He was standing (inside Feroz Shah Kotla premises) in a secluded area all by himself and so one of our officers approached and asked him ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘He said:’Main apne girlfriend se baat kar raha hoon. (I am talking to my girlfriend). Just when he (officer) was going through the contents of his phone, the guy fled from the spot.”
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Hussain also confirmed that the they didn’t receive any complaint of players being approached or involvement of any support staff involved in IPL during the 29 games that were held. He also said that during the Mumbai leg, the hotel in which the Sunrisers Hyderabad team was staying had three people with questionable past records were there by the ACU officers. However, they couldn’t come in contact with the players.
