ICC team meets CBI officials

Onkar Singh

The six-member International Cricket Council anti-corruption team, led by Sir Paul Condon, called on officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation and held discussions with them for over two-and-a-half hours on the agency's match-fixing report.

Besides Sir Paul Condon, the other members of the team are Martin Hawkins, Bob Smalleyn (all ICC investigators), Greg Melick of Australia, Desmond Fernando of Sri Lanka and Tim Gragresson of New Zealand.

Condon however refused to comment on the meeting. "There is a press conference tomorrow," he said, when asked if the team's discussions with the CBI officials were useful.

CBI joint commissioner R N Sawani, who led the investigation into the match-fixing scandal, later told rediff.com the meeting was good.

"Sir Paul Condon understood our difficulties because he is a former commissioner of Scotland Yard," Sawani said.

According official spokesman S M Khan, the investigators from Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka were interested in knowing more about players from their countries.

"Naturally, they asked for more details about their respective players. The New Zealander was more interested in knowing about Martin Crowe, while the Australian wanted to get more details about Mark Waugh. Fernando from Sri Lanka likewise was more interested in details about Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda D'Silva.

"We will give them whatever assistance we can and help them in carrying out their investigations," said Khan.

Asked whether the CBI would help the investigators in arranging a meeting with bookie Mukesh Gupta, Khan said they could do so on their own and CBI has nothing to do in the matter.

According to insiders the CBI has not closed its investigation in the match-fixing case and is still looking for evidence against some players who have not been named in its report. They are also looking for some bookies who were not available earlier.

Condon and two members of his unit also had a 45-minute meeting with Delhi police joint commissioner Dr K K Paul. It is learnt that they enquired how the Delhi police went about nailing Hansie Cronje and also congratulated the commissioner for exposing the nexus between cricketers and bookies.

Mail Cricket Editor