‘Players Cheated of Lakhs of Rupees by Coaches or Officials Who Promised Them Place in an IPL or Ranji Team’

Neeraj Kumar, a former IPS officer who served as BCCI’s Anti-Corruption Unit Head between 2015 and 2018, has made some damning allegations in his book titles ‘A Cop in Cricket’. Neeraj claims that fixing is just the tip of the ‘huge iceberg’ of corruption in cricket.

“In the three years that I spent at the BCCI, I realised that fixing was the proverbial tip of the huge iceberg of corruption in cricket. Fixing is, in fact, a minuscule percentage of the large-scale chicanery that cricket administrators indulge in,” Neeraj writes in his book.

He alleges the misappropriation of the revenues by state cricket associations pointing out the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association case.

“The handsome revenues earned by cricket in India – thanks to the IPL – are parcelled off to state cricket associations, where the money is mostly misappropriated. The 2015 Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case against the top bosses of the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) for embezzlement of crores of rupees given to them by the BCCI is a case in point,” Neeraj claims.

Also Read: Should Australia Have Played Sweep Shot Against Ravindra Jadeja in 2nd Test?

He then writes about several “unsavoury things also happen at the grassroots level” during team selections.

“Those happenings remain a matter between the selector and the aspiring cricketer or his family.”

Neeraj said during his tenure, the ACU looked into several such complaints, including a few where sexual favours were sought from young cricketers.

“We were frequently approached by players and their guardians complaining that they were cheated of lakhs of rupees by coaches or officials who promised them a place in an IPL or Ranji team and then disappeared, leaving them high and dry,” Kumar Neeraj writes.

Get the latest Cricket News here