Manoj Prabhakar is a former right-arm medium-pacer bowler for India. He served the Indian Squad from 1984 till 1996. In 1997, Prabhakar was accused by the BCCI for match fixing charges, to which he denied until the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.
The Charges
Manoj Prabhakar accused a team member, whose name was kept unknown, in a public accusation for the Outlook magazine. The BCCI was asked to review India’s recently played matches because of the accusations. BCCI appointed Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud, a retired Chief Justice of India to judge the investigations. Some of the questionable matches were:* 1991 - India VS Pakistan – Sharjah. Indian team management asked Prabhakar and Sanjay Manjrekar to play even under dim lights. Pakistan went ahead to win the match.* 1994 – India VS Pakistan – Singer Cup. Prabhakar was offered Rs. 2.5 Million for underperforming on field, leading to a victory for Pakistan.* 1994 – India VS West Indies – Kanpur. Prabhakar and Nayan Mongia were dropped from subsequent matches for scoring 11 runs out of 48 balls. Indiscipline charges were levied upon.* Date not known – India VS Pakistan – Sharjah. The competing team captains Mohammad Azharuddin and Aamir Sohail both claimed to have won the toss. Prabhakar questioned the authenticity of these matches.
BCCI Hearings
The BCCI commission wanted to probe the possibility of match fixing prevailing in the team. Prabhakar had pointed fingers towards Ajit Wadekar, Kapil Dev, Nayan Mongia, to name a few. Many players like Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sunil Gavaskar, and Sanjay Manjrekar appeared in front of Justice Chandrachud.
The commission took written testimony from H Natarajan (Sports Editor, The Indian Express) and R. Mohan (The Hindu), Aniruddha Bahal (Principal Correspondent, Outlook), Bipin Dani (freelance journalist), SK Sham (Press Correspondent, Reuters).
Sunil Dev (Manager - India Tour of South Africa) was also presented before the commission.
The Final Verdict
In October 1997 the final decision of the appointed commission came out. The report was judiciously submitted to BCCI but the statements were not disclosed yet. BCCI released the actual report submitted by Justice Chandrachud in 2000. According to the report:* Pabhakar had waited for 3 – 6 years before reporting the charges against match fixing. The commission could not find a credible reason for so. Manjrekar disagreed with Prabkahar’s allegations for the 1991 match against Pakistan in Sharjah. Prabhakar was unable to provide enough proof to support the Singer Cup accusations. The match where both Aamir Sohail and Mohammad Azharuddin claimed to have won the toss never took place.* The Judge dismissed Prabhakar’s allegations against Ajit Wadekar about tapping the phone lines of Indian cricketers.
The After Effects
The decision of the Commission was highly disapproved by the Indian media. They accused the Commission of not investigating all facts accessible to it. The unwillingness to discover facts about the Sohail – Azharuddin toss, lack of taking initiative, absence of proper recording of evidences lack of plausible questioning of all the accused members, all were severely criticized by the media.