Raju denies allegations to blow away

MOHAMMED AZHARUDDIN...One of the main protagonist of the story, denied the allegations of Rashid Latif, and also produced a faxed letter by...

MOHAMMED AZHARUDDIN…One of the main protagonist of the story, denied the allegations of Rashid Latif, and also produced a faxed letter by the Pakistani wicket-keeper in which he claimed his quote were placed out of context.

HYDERABAD, July 22: “It is nothing but a baseless allegation. I am surprised to see this,” said Venkatapathy Raju when this correspondent showed him the latest Outlook magazine at the Lal Bahadur Stadium in which former Pakistan wicketkeeper Rashid Latif revealing that four Indians — Azharuddin, Jadeja, Sidhu and Raju — used to telphone him to gather details of the match

like finding out team, about the pitch and what the weather was like.

Raju, who was playing in a three-day match at the Lal Bahadur Stadium and even had a rich haul of five wickets yesterday, said: “Rashid was a good friend of mine but we never discussed these petty issues. In fact, I appreciated his move when he walked out of the Pakistan team during the Zimbabwe tour in 1995 on the issue of betting.”

`Muscles’ Raju, who is trying to make a comeback into the Indian team, said that when on tours, he never rings up his own residence, leave alone giving a ring to Latif.

Story continues below this ad

Raju went on to say at a time he was himself struggling to stay in the team how he could think of these things. He felt these players should be pulled up for giving wrong information to the public. “This is nothing but cheap publicity. Just because he (Latif) doesn’t find a place in the Pakisan team, he is trying to be in the news.”

The shocking allegation has not come at a right time for Raju. With the national selectors meeting next week for remaining part of the Sri Lanka tour, this allegation has given a new twist on the on-going betting scandal.