Dealing yet another telling blow to S Sreesanth’s hopes of making a miraculous return to the cricket field, Neeraj Kumar, the Chief of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, has rejected the tainted bowler’s allegations of discrimination against the governing body.
Sreesanth, along with Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, was banned for life by the board’s disciplinary committee in September 2013 for fixing charges.
However, a couple of years later, he was cleared of all charges by a Delhi trial court due to insufficient evidence. But much to his surprise, the BCCI did not lift the ban and is still abiding by it, as the decision was independent to any criminal proceeding and was based on its independent disciplinary action.
A frustrated Sreesanth has accused the board of discriminating against him on several occasions, but Kumar has dismissed all the claims, saying that the rules are same for everyone.
“I don’t think there is any discrimination. Even the other banned players are also not playing international cricket. If they are playing at some local level where the BCCI doesn’t come into the picture, we are not aware of it,” Kumar told ANI.
“Sreesanth can plead that he is innocent, but according to us, he is guilty. He can contest the charges as a citizen, and it’s under judicial process so I can’t comment,” he added.
In August this year, a single-judge bench of Kerala High Court had asked the BCCI to lift the ban, but last month the division bench had overturned the decision, thus upholding the life ban on the bowler.
Meanwhile, Kumar further claimed that the corruption had been eradicated from top-level cricket.
“I believe that corruption at the higher levels of tier ‘A’ games has completely died down,” he said.
“We have noticed corruption at lower levels of cricket, like T20 leagues. We have taken action in collaboration with the police. For instance, at Jaipur, we have arrested 20 people for corruption. Similarly, several other corrupt leagues were disrupted,” he added.
Kumar also spoke on how to check betting which according to him is not very rampant.
“Betting is a different issue; it is punishable under gambling act. Most of the while it is not detected as it is very rampant,” he said.
Kumar further said that ‘betting does not affect the integrity of the game’ but it does when some miscreants try to fix the outcomes of the game.
“If the game is going on and some people are betting in the backdrop, it doesn’t affect the integrity of the game, but if they try to fix the outcome of the game by compromising with players then it is something we should take notice of,” explained Kumar.
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