Former Indian cricketer Suresh Raina who played a key role for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their incredible success with the franchise, recently opined on the one dark period they had witnessed. It was the spot-fixing scandal back in IPL 2013. And, Raina claimed that the Chennai players had no clue about the spot-fixing and betting and they believed none of the cricketers from the squad was involved in the scandal. However, a top CSK official, Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested on the day of the IPL 2013 final between CSK and Mumbai Indians (MI) with the charges as well.

Speaking to The Lallantop, Suresh Raina said, “We were players and had no idea what was going on. Players can’t do anything, even if they want to, because the anti-corruption system is very strong. You can’t even think about it. You’d be in jail if you do something like that.”

However, Chennai Super Kings had to pay a heavy price because of that as they were banned from the IPL for two seasons – the 2016 and 2017 editions as well. The Justice Lodha Committee found Meiyappan guilty of the charges and handed him a lifetime ban from attending any games arranged by the BCCI as well. Meanwhile, there was a lot of speculation about why Suresh Raina had left CSK’s IPL 2020 camp to return to India as well.

“I had gone to Punjab because there was a death in my family. My uncle’s whole family was killed by a gang. There was a bio bubble, so couldn’t join the team again. I thought that it’s okay, I would play some other time in the future; family is more important. I had also informed the owner and Dhoni bhai about it,” concluded Suresh Raina.