NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 5: To find out how weak the Central Bureau of Investigation's match-fixing case against Indian cricketers is, just walk into Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla. In the middle of the green, near the pitch, stands one man the CBI quotes in its report and who now says that he was tortured into making that statement.Ram Adher Chaudhary, the head groundsman at the Ferozeshah Kotla, admits that he met former India and Delhi cricketer Ajay Sharma one evening at the Raj Ghat but denies that he took money. The CBI in its report says that Sharma paid him Rs 50,000 to fix the Kotla pitch.``I have been implicated in the case unnecessarily. They (CBI) forced me to say that I received the amount from Ajay Sharma although it is not the truth,'' he says while supervising the cutting of grass and preparation of the ground for India's first Test against Zimbabwe on November 18.Ram Adher, who has been with the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) for more than two decades, vehemently denies that he ever took money to fix the pitch.``My job is only to water the pitch and its surroundings and to roll the wickets. My colleagues (we are 10 groundsmen in all) and I do as we are told by the DDCA management and not by what any player says. There is no question of my having changed the nature of any wicket to suit one team or the other,'' says Ram Adher.He knows that his name was in the newspapers. ``I have four small kids. I swear by them that I never took any money,'' he says.Ram Adher recalls that evening in 1996-97 when he met Ajay Sharma at Raj Ghat. ``It was around 5 in the evening. After finishing my duty I was about to go home on my bicycle when Ajay Sharma asked me to accompany him to Raj Ghat in his car. There, I found another person whom I had never seen before. Ajay asked me about the nature of the wicket, how it will play. I told him that we will prepare a good wicket. That is all. Then Ajay's friend dropped me back at the Kotla. I was neither offered money nor did I take any.''``Any way, I told him that Radhey Shyam Sharma was in charge of preparing the wicket for that particular match and that we were only following his instructions,'' he adds.Then how come the CBI story is different. ``The CBI people took me in a car from the Kotla a couple of months ago and repeatedly asked me whether Ajay Sharma gave me any money to which I said no. But they would not listen. They beat me on legs with a lathi and compelled me to tell their superior that I took Rs 50,000 from Ajay Sharma. I was afraid they might harm me and my family. So I said what they wanted me to say,'' he says. The CBI, however, denies the allegations and sticks to its story.Ram Adher draws a monthly salary of about Rs 5,700 from the DDCA and there are nine others working along with him. Says a colleague, Ali Mohammad: ``We only do our work and seek the blessings of the Allah. No cricketer or any other person has approached me with any offer to reveal the nature of the wickets.''
