India-Sri Lanka WC semifinal may have been fixed: Kambli

Former Indian cricketer Vinod Kambli makes the shocking allegation on STAR News that he suspects that the 1996 World Cup Semi Final played between India and Sri Lanka may have been fixed.

Vinod Kambli Crying on Star News

Pakistan cricket community lashes out at BCCI, ICC

Karachi, Nov 20: The cricket community in Pakistan has lashed out at ICC president Sharad Pawar and the BCCI for their refusals to investigate claims by former India player Vinod Kambli that the 1996 World Cup semifinal against Sri Lanka may have been fixed.

"This is a former India player making a serious accusation and yet even Sharad Pawar in his capacity as ICC president has dismissed the issue outright which is strange," former captain Rashid Latif said.

"I don't see what is wrong in holding an investigation even if Kambli has come out with claims after 15 years. If there was no hanky panky in the match what has the BCCI or Pawar have to fear," Latif said.

Pawar had earlier said that that if Kambli was a honest and committed cricketer, he should have told about everything he knew then, but he kept quiet.

The BCCI also said that they didn't see any need to take the allegations by Kambli seriously and would not investigate his accusations.

"Kambli today has come out in the open because now after our three players were jailed by a court there is renewed confidence that people responsible for fixing and corruption can be punished. In the past different boards and authorities have tried to play down this serious problem and brush it under the match that is why no cricketer had the confidence to come out if he knew something or suspected something," Latif said.

He said the quick reaction of the Indian board and Pawar only showed just how other boards were not willing to accept their players could be involved in corruption and this was not a problem restricted to Pakistan.

Former captain, Moin Khan also expressed surprise at the BCCI and ICC's reaction.

He said while Kambli's decision to come out with his allegations was questionable but at the same time they were serious allegations and could not be ignored.

"How can the BCCI say it will not investigate the matter and even Pawar is now ICC president and should be clear about his priorities," Khan said.

Former Test player, Iqbal Qasim said the way the Indian board and the ICC tried to ignore Kambli highlighted the bias in international cricket.

"It is now obvious that there are different set of rules for Pakistanis and other countries especially India and I think our board needs to take a lesson from this," the former spinner said.

Former Test pacer, Sarfaraz Nawaz said both the ICC and BCCI, after the recent spot-fixing trial, were scared that more corruption scandals would come out if they investigated the claims by Kambli.

"Don't forget Kambli is talking about a match where India was captained by a man Mohammad Azharuddin who was later banned for life for fixing and yet the Indians are not willing to take the issue seriously. It shows their double standards," he said.

Pawar dismisses Kambli's match-fixing claims

LUCKNOW : Dismissing former cricketer Vinod Kambli's claim on match-fixing, chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday said, "I would have taken the claims seriously, if the same had come from players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly or for that matter former team manager and coachAjit Wadekar."

Pawar, who was in Lucknow to attend Nationalist Congress Party's meet, said, had Kambli focussed only on cricket than other things, he would have been standing in league of great players like Sachin Tendulkar. As a player, Kambli had everything which could have made him as great a player as Sachin is today.

A couple of days back, Kambli had raised suspicion on the 1996 World Cup semi-final between India and Sri Lanka and had said he found "something amiss" in the game which effectively brought an end to his international career.

The left-handed batsman, who scored 1,084 runs in 17 Tests and 2,477 runs in 104 ODIs for India, said he was suspicious of then captain Mohammed Azharuddin's decision to field first in the semi-final which was eventually awarded to Sri Lanka because of crowd problem.

Kambli also claimed that his suspicion arose due to Azharuddin's decision to field first even though it was unanimously decided that the team would bat after winning the toss. "I will never forget the 1996 match because my career ended after this and I was dropped from the team. I was stunned by India's decision to field first," Kambli had said.

When asked to comment on the issue, Pawar first tried to downplay it saying, "It is a 15-year-old matter." However, after a few pauses he couldn't stop himself from saying, "No wonder Kambli was a great batsman; his claims are nothing but irresponsible and unwarranted."

On former chief of cricket's anti-corruption wing Paul Condon's claims of match-fixing, Pawar said, he(Condon) was talking of matches, which were played in 80s and till 1990.

Condon, the founding chief of International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit, had told aLondon newspaper, "Every international team, at some stage, had someone doing some funny stuff. In the late 1990s, Test and World Cup matches were being routinely fixed. There were a number of teams involved in fixing, certainly more than Indian subcontinent teams were involved."

Condon, however, asserted that the genesis of match-fixing lay not in the subcontinent, but in English county cricket, where favours were traded between teams across the 40-over Sunday League and first-class championship .

The ICC's former anti-corruption chief also did not rule out fixing in present day matches including the IPL. Pawar said, "I had a meeting with Condon, where he did talk about match-fixing and was quite general on his claim about all the nations."

Condon had also said that excess of Twenty20 cricket has resulted in re-emergence of corruption in cricket. Condon had reportedly said, "Probably, the greatest trigger point was the explosion of T20. The 'anything goes party' atmosphere allowed some really bad people back into the game. Some of the notorious fixers from early years started to re-emerge on the circuit in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia and the UK."

"Condon during the meeting never took name of India at any point of discussion with me. However, he did name two cricket playing nations gravely involved in match-fixing," Pawar further said, and refused to name the two countries, which were questioned by Condon during a meeting with him.