Punjab bookies link in fake cricket team racket

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, December 7

The Mumbai police are investigating the alleged links of three notorious bookies operating from Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi with a countrywide racket where fake selection camps were held to con young players aspiring to play for IPL teams.

Police sources said here that the three bookies — RS Dhindwal, Shubham Jain and Priyank Saxena — were active in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Chandigarh and were linked to the brains behind the fake selection camps.

Police had arrested Amritsar-based Aditya Bhandari, who ran the Arnav Cricket Academy, for allegedly organising selection camps, claiming to represent Kings XI Punjab. Bhandari illegally used the logos of KXIP and was holding these camps in western India. One of these camps was being held at Mumbai’s Oval Maidan when the law caught up with the brains behind the racket. Bhandari’s associates Harvinder Singh, Ravindra Gupta and Satendra Singh were picked up from the ground. Investigators from the Board of Control for Cricket in India have been provided with incriminating information against several young cricketers who may have been linked to these bookies in last summer’s IPL season.

Interrogation of the arrested persons has resulted in the unearthing of several residential and commercial properties owned by the bookies and their associates in Mumbai, Pune and other parts of Maharashtra, police said.

Incidentally, the name of bookie Shubham Jain figured in the match-fixing controversy involving Kerala-based cricketer S Sreesanth. 

Pollution: IMA writes to BCCI over Delhi Test 

• New Delhi: The Indian Medical Association has told BCCI that it was “greatly troubled” over the Test match between India and Sri Lanka being played in Delhi amid high pollution levels. In a letter to BCCI acting president CK Khanna and head of Committee of Administrators Vinod Rai, IMA president Dr KK Agarwal said the message that has gone home from the match is that it is safe for the children to play cricket even when PM 2.5 levels are more than 300. “Rain and poor light are taken into consideration when determining suitable playing conditions, we suggest that atmospheric pollution should now also be included in the assessing criteria for a match,” the letter said. Agarwal said air pollution impacts the performance of the athletes. He quoted from medical literature and journals and said poor air quality in the country's capital may increase the risk of lung and heart disease and precipitate an acute potentially life-threatening event. If the Air Quality Index (AQI) is between 151 and 200, it is recommended that outdoor exercises should be reduced. 

Sharjeel slams PCB tribunal 

• Karachi: Banned Pakistan opener Sharjeel Khan said he has been treated unfairly by the PCB tribunal in the Pakistan Super League spot-fixing case, a claim rejected by the Board as “a ploy to gain sympathy”. Interacting with the media for the first time in nearly 10 months, Sharjeel claimed that the punishment of five-year ban handed out to him by the PCB anti-corruption tribunal was unjust and that he would appeal the ban in the courts now. “I swear by God that I am innocent and that I didn’t accept any offer to spot-fix. I have fully cooperated with PCB throughout this case and I expected justice from them. I am sorry to say the PCB tribunal unfairly tried to implicate me in the case,” Sharjeel said. — AGENCIES