Final action against guilty cricketers in 15 days — Muthiah

NEW DELHI, NOV 3: Cricket Board (BCCI) president A C Muthiah today said the Board has constituted an internal inquiry committee, headed by...

NEW DELHI, NOV 3: Cricket Board (BCCI) president A C Muthiah today said the Board has constituted an internal inquiry committee, headed by former CBI joint director K Madhavan, to go into the CBI findings on match-fixing and suggest appropriate follow-up action within 15 days.

After banning five cricketers pending the inquiry, Muthiah, after meeting the Sports Minister S S Dhindsa, said, “We will spare no efforts in taking action to curb such malpractices.”

Earlier in the day, BCCI slapped a ban on five players — Mohd Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia, Ajay Sharma and Manoj Prabhakar — all named in the CBI report on match-fixing, from playing in both international and domestic cricket.

Story continues below this ad

Muthiah said that the inquiry committee will submit its report to the disciplinary committee of the Board, which in turn, will recommend what penal action can be taken.

“All this will be through within 15 days. This is what we told the Minister today and he is extremely happy,” the Board president said after an hour-long meeting with Dhindsa.

Asked to comment on the CBI findings, Muthiah said the making of the report was a painstaking exercise and they had done a lot of detailed work and collected a lot of information.

“Definitely there has been involvement of players with a number of bookmakers, that nobody can doubt. They have tried to fix matches, but even according to the report some of the fixing have not taken place and only one match has been fixed,” Muthiah said.

Story continues below this ad

On whether the Board was contemplating any other punitive measures, apart from ban on the `tainted players’, he said as per the BCCI’s Code of Conduct whatever the penalty was attributable for their default “We will do that.”

Asked specifically what would be the maximum punishment on the erring players, he said, “Maximum is life ban. More than that what can we do. It (life-ban) might happen. I cannot prejudge the whole issue now.

“Let the Madhavan Committee give its report. Then we will decide,” Muthiah said.

To a question on whether there was any need for a government control over the functioning of the BCCI, Muthiah retorted, “There is no government control. Board is autonomous. We do not require any government control.”