Former cricketer and chief selector of Team India Chetan Sharma’s sting operation by Zee News has been in the spotlight in the last few days. The head coach revealed some inside details of Team India to a reporter from Zee New, who recorded the conversation. The sting operation has evoked different reactions from the fans.
This isn’t the first sting operation that has come to the fore in cricketing history. Over the years, several sting operations have shaken fans all over the world. They revealed shocking details about the role of bookies and spot-fixing in the sport. In this article, we take a look at five sting operations that shook cricket fans.
# Chetan Sharma 2023 Sting Operation
In a sting operation by Zee News, chief selector Chetan Sharma revealed some surprising details about Team India. He alleged that Indian cricketers often use injections, which are not detectable during doping tests, to return to full fitness. The packed-international cricketing has taken a toll on the cricketers, which has resulted in several injuries in Team India. The Indian management has been accused of rushing the comeback of injured players.
“The players are not fit but they take injections to play. They are ready to play even at 80 percent fitness. They take injections and start playing. I am talking about injections. If they take pain-killer then it will come in dopping. Team India players are aware of which injections come in anti-doping,” said Chetan Sharma in the Zee New video.
The Indian selector was also heard speaking about Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly’s clash. There were often rumours about Virat Kohli and then BCCI President Sourav Ganguly not being on the same page. In 2021, Virat Kohli was sacked as the ODI captain, and Rohit Sharma was given the responsibility.
“We weren’t favoring Rohit Sharma, we were against Virat Kohli,” said Chetan Sharma. “Ganguly did not favor Rohit but he never liked Virat. You can put it in this way.”
#Manoj Prabhakar’s 2000 Sting operation with Tehelka
In 2000, Tehelka founders, Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal’s “Fallen Heroes” sting operation shook the world. They convinced cricketer Manoj Prabhakar to record conversations with his colleagues, after the South Africa cricket match-fixing scandal involving Hansie Cronje in March 2000. Hansie Cronje had admitted to having had conversations with an Indian bookie over fixing matches.
During the 2002 sting operation, Manoj Prabhakar and Aniruddha Bahal took meetings with BCCI officials and players, with Prabhakar wearing hidden recording equipment. He recorded conversations about bookies, and how matches or some part of the match is fixed.
The recordings were released in May 2000 and were also used by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as evidence for its own inquiry. The CBI implicated Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, and Ajay Sharma were the cricketers involved in the scandal.
# Rakesh Maria’s revelation about spot-fixing in Indian cricket
Tehelka’s sting operation also involved a video of the Mumbai commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria’s revelations about spot-fixing. Maria had revealed that players back then could earn up to Rs 1.25 crore (Rs. 12.5 million) in exchange for fixing matches.
He also named a few Indian players, who might have been involved in the process. Maria specifically named Mohammed Azharuddin, Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Jadeja, and Kapil Dev with their involvement being corroborated by police evidence. The officer stated that Mohammed Azharuddin had a criminal mind.
# Sunil Gavaskar talks about Mohammed Azharuddin’s relationship with a bookie
In an interview, Sunil Gavaskar made some revelations about Mohammed Azharuddin’s relation with a bookie named Sanjiv Chawla. He expressed that on one of the overseas tours, Mohammed Azharuddin had bought an expensive watch worth $10,000 but didn’t have money to pay for it. Sanjiv Chawla transferred the money to Azharuddin to pay for the watch, revealed Gavaskar. He suspected Azharuddin’s relation with the bookie. However, he did not mention Hyderabad cricket’s involvement in match-fixing.
# Al Jazeera Sting operation
In 2018, the TV channel Al Jazeera released two documentaries titled Cricket’s Match Fixers. Those documentaries portrayed various forms of corruption in cricket. In the first part, which was released in May 2018, Al Jazeera alleged some England and Australian batters playing at a rate specified by fixers for the purposes of betting, during the 2016 England Test against India and the 2018 India-Australia test.
The same year in October, Al Jazeera released the second part of the documentary. In the documentary, they alleged that 15 international matches in the 2011-12 period had been subject to spot-fixing. Seven of these matches involved England, five involved Australia, and three Pakistan.
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