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Prabhakar says ex-India captain, manager threw matches

Former all-rounder Manoj Prabhakar today alleged a former India captain and an ex-manager were involved in throwing matches.

During an on-line chat on Wahindia.com, the transcript of which was made available to UNI, Prabhakar said no match can be fixed without the involvement of the team management, particularly the captain.

Prabhakar had in 1997 come up with the sensational allegation that a teammate offered him Rs 25 lakh to perform poorly in a one-day international in the 1994 Singer Cup in Colombo. However, he had not divulged any names.

When asked about the sequence of events as they unfolded in Colombo, the former cricketer said he went to the team management. ''Team management is what? The manager, the captain and the vice-captain.''

To a pointed question by one of the panelists if he was referring to the period when Mohammad Azharuddin was the captain and Ajit Wadekar the manager, Prabhakar said: ''Yeah. I am quoting those (who were involved).''

At the beginning of the discussion, Prabhakar said: ''Cricket is a money game now. Money is everything...cricket takes the back seat.''

Asked what the team management told him when he approached them, he said: ''The manager said it's okay. You are too good a player.''

And the then captain?

''Captain? You know what I said (earlier). Without the captain you can't do anything.''

Prabhakar charged the team management with demoting him to number six in the batting order during the 1996 world cup as he ''knew everything.''

''If you remember I was the man-of-the-series against New Zealand prior to the World Cup. I was batting at number one. I was told to go at number six. So I asked the manager what was going on. He said this was not his decision but the management's decision."

Prabhakar called for a CBI inquiry into match fixing which, he said, had affected the credibility of the game in the sub-continent.

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