"Given the conditions of the pitch was wet due to long spell of rain, we have decided to bowl first in a team meeting," Dev said in the sting made public on Sunday evening. He added: "But Dhoni surprised everyone by opting to bat first." No surprises that India lost this match within three days by an innings and 54 runs.
At a time when the entire Indian cricket establishment is facing serious credibility issue post Indian Premiere League spot-fixing and the subsequent Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice RM Lodha panel findings, a stunning match-fixing claim by Delhi & District Cricket Association sports secretary Sunil Dev could make life difficult for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in the coming days.
Dev, who was the Indian team manager during the 2014 tour of England, was caught in a video sting claiming that the fourth Test in Manchester was fixed by none other than the skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
This expose was done by Hindi daily Sun Star in a sting operation. It must be mentioned here that both the audio and video of the sting was audible and clear.
"Given the conditions of the pitch was wet due to long spell of rain, we have decided to bowl first in a team meeting," Dev said in the sting made public on Sunday evening. He added: "But Dhoni surprised everyone by opting to bat first." No surprises that India lost this match within three days by an innings and 54 runs.
In fact, Dev also added that former England skipper Geoffrey Boycott also raised questions over Dhoni's decision to bat first. Dev further claimed that "he was 100 per cent sure that Dhoni had fixed this match deliberately".
Not stopping there, Dev went on to say that "he even raised this matter to BCCI and also had written a letter to the then BCCI president N Srinivasan".
Dev was caught saying in the sting that "he was asked to type his complaint in Srinivasan's office, in front of him, because he (Srini) did not want the report to be leaked". Though Dev claimed that he was appreciated for his good work by Srinivasan, the BCCI never took any action over his report.
When asked in the video that why he didn't choose to come public earlier, Dev's answer was on the expected lines. "I feared for my life." This expose of Dev is certainly going to make matters worse for BCCI at a time when Supreme Court has made it clear that sweeping reforms must be implemented in the cricket body. Both Justice Mudgal and Lodha panel reports raised some serious doubts over Srinivasan's role in the spot-fixing saga. In fact, dna also revealed in one of its reports that Dhoni's name has allegedly been included in the list of 13 names that was submitted to the apex court by Justice Mudgal team.
Dev not new to Indian cricket
And, Dev is also not new to Indian cricket. He has been the team manager several times in the past. He accompanied the team to South Africa in 1996-97 and the first ICC World T20 in 2007 in South Africa that India won under Dhoni. Dev has also been DDCA sports secretary for more than one and a half decade.
When dna spoke to top DDCA officials after this expose, it was revealed that Dev's own reputation has taken a severe beating in recent times when it was revealed in an internal inquiry that he was using DDCA's money to sponsor an alleged bookie's defamation case.
"Our internal inquiry last year revealed that several cheques of around Rs 5.60 lakh were signed by Dev to pay the legal fee of someone's (read bookie) personal defamation case against a media house. And, when DDCA and Dev stopped making payment after this inquiry, the said case was dismissed by the court," said a top DDCA official on Sunday.
"DDCA will surely ask Dev to repay this amount. Otherwise, an action would be initiated against him soon," warned the official. No comments have come from BCCI so far.
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