Representational image of a cricket stadium
The Punjab police on Monday arrested Ravinder Dandiwal, who is allegedly involved in the international tennis match-fixing scandal, from Mohali for recently hosting fake Sri Lankan T20 league games near Chandigarh.
He was subsequently produced in a local court that sent him to a five-day police remand.
Dandiwal, who is on the radar of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, is facing charges of hosting a cricket match of the Uva T20 league on June 29 that was aired in Sri Lanka through YouTube.
A BCCI ACU team will now be reaching Mohali and sharing the details with the police, confirmed BCCI's Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) head Ajit Singh.
"Yes, he (Dandiwal) has been arrested and we are sending a team there. We will gather whatever information we can, we will also share the information available with us to the police," Singh told IANS.
"Whatever is useful to the police, we are ready to hand it over," he added
The cricket match, comprising small-time players largely of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, was played at a cricket academy in Sawara village, some 15 km from the state capital.
The players were wearing face masks, pretending to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and were donning numbered jerseys.
"Ravinder Dandiwal is arrested and we have been probing his role in this racket," Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police Kuldeep Singh Chahal told the media.
Earlier, the police had arrested Raju and Pankaj, who had booked the cricket ground of the Strokers Cricket Association for Rs 33,000.
The case of the fake cricket match came to the light on the complaint of Parminder Singh, a resident of Kharar town.
Official sources said the police have sent a notice to YouTube for airing the match.
"All the players who were hired for the cricket match was small-time players and they were offered Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 for playing the match. The role of some Ranji players in hosting the match is also under investigation," a senior police official told IANS.
He said the players with dark tan skins were selected for the match so that they looked alike Sri Lankans.
Two cameras were installed in such a way they focused on the back of the players in order to conceal their faces and were typically taking long shots.
"When the match was airing, suddenly a camera captured some farmers working in a rice field. That raised a suspicion that the match is not being played in a stadium," said the police official, who is part of the investigation.
The Sri Lankan cricket board had already denied their involvement in the tournament.
"Sri Lanka Cricket wishes to announce that neither SLC nor its affiliates have any knowledge or any involvement with a fantasy tournament staged by an undisclosed party under the name and title of �Uva Premier League T20', despite some media reports published by Indian websites claiming that such a tournament is being played in Sri Lanka from 29th June 2020 onwards," SLC had said in a statement.
