Kapil, Wadekar to appear before Madhavan next week

Former India captains and coaches, Kapil Dev and Ajit Wadekar, are to appear before the Board of Control for Cricket in India anti corruption commissioner K Madhavan over the weekend in New Delhi as a follow up to the CBI report on betting and match-fixing.

The meetings of the two former Indian captains with Madhavan have actually been postponed. Kapil Dev was to appear before Madhavan at Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla on Saturday and Wadekar was to present himself on Sunday.

"Wadekar will meet me on January 8 and Kapil Dev on January 10," Madhavan told PTI in New Delhi on Friday night. He said the requests for the postponements had been received from the two former coaches.

"Madhavan has asked us to provide facilities at the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) office for the meeting with Wadekar on Monday morning," said BCCI vice-president CK Khanna, who is also DDCA vice-president. Khanna, however, said he had no information about when Kapil Dev would meet Madhavan.

Kapil Dev had received a clean chit from the CBI as it found nothing substantial against him. Neither he nor Wadekar was called for the earlier meetings with Madhavan which five cricketers, Mohd Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Manoj Prabhakar, Nayan Mongia and Ajay Sharma besides, team physiotherapist Ali Irani and Kotla's groundsman Ram Adher had on the basis of the CBI report.

After the meetings, Madhavan submitted his report to the Board whose Disciplinary Committee slapped life bans on Azharuddin and Sharma and handed out five year suspensions to Jadeja, Prabhakar and Irani. Mongia and Ram Adher were exonerated as nothing substantial was found against them by either CBI or Madhavan. The Board subsequently decided to ask Madhavan to connduct "appropriate enquiries" with Kapil Dev and Wadekar and submit a supplementary report.

Meanwhile, the Delhi police will depute a team to the United Kingdom and South Africa for further probe into the cricket match-fixing scandal, City Police Commissioner Ajai Sharma said in New Delhi on Friday. "We have sought government's permission for this. The feedback so far from these countries has been inadequate," Sharma told reporters.

Sharma said once the permission was given, a high-level police team would visit these countries by February end. Answering a question, he said the official line from the UK and South Africa was that the charge-sheeted former South African captain Hansie Cronje had filed "a few petitions" and hence much could not be done as long as the matter was sub-judice.