NEWS
SCHEDULES
COLUMNS
PREVIOUS TOURS
OTHER SPORTS
STATISTICS
INTERVIEWS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Was Rediff lying?

In the mailbox today, I found this. Written by someone who signs himself 'Bhai Desi'

Hi Prem,

Just read your fiery piece denigrating our former Chief Justice.

Well, do you guys need any qualification to become journalists?

Or is it like being smugglers or politicians? Have contacts, have fun!

Did you take time to check the record books?

When did Manoj Prabhakar play his last ODI?

Surprise , surprise! It was not 1997, or 1996.

It was 4/9/94, at Colombo, vs Sri Lanka.

Well, as we see.... Aamir Sohail never went to toss with Azhar during Manoj's cricket life.

Every truth or statement has a context. In this case, all of his allegations refer to incidents in his career.

This one was not. This one was just a guess from telescopic distance.

He can only talk about inside things when he is an insider. That is, when he was playing. Not when when he was scratching things outside.

So.......

Will you have the guts to modify your statements today?

Let's see how much Prem loves truth and Cricket.

This will test whether his ultimate concern is something else or not!

Truth is naked, it makes you naked. You need honesty to face it. Most of the rabble rousers today don't have the guts.

For us, we will look forward to your next column for an explanation. An apology to the Chief Justice. Not an apolgy of explanation.

It is okay to make mistakes. It is a sin to cover up!!!

Let's have a bet! Will prem face the truth? Or hide under falsification?

Watch Rediff today.

BhaiDesi

Before responding, a line on why this letter is being published. This is not the only mail that raises the question -- quite a few other readers have mailed in, pointing out what to their minds seems to be an anomaly in the facts, and asking for clarifications. We have mailed responses to each of them individually -- but as a friend pointed out, there are probably several thousand others thinking the same thing, asking the same question, but who have not emailed to seek clarification. So... follows, the clarification:

To help things along, here is a link to Manoj Prabhakar's signed article as carried in the issue of Outlook magazine: On a wicket of greenbacks. Alternately, you can find that, and other stories, here.

Item two: A link to the deposition of Manoj Prabhakar, as conducted by Justice Y V Chandrachud, and as entered by him in his report, and signed by him: The Chandrachud Report -- Manoj Prabhakar.

Before moving on to answer the question, a point needs to be made: The judge's brief included a section where he was asked to investigate the charges Prabhakar made in the Outlook story. As is evident from Prabhakar's deposition as put down by Chandrachud, he did not even ask him about the Sharjah game, or about the Amir Sohail-Azharuddin toss confusion. There is not a word about it in Manoj's deputation as put down by the judge -- though in his summation, the judge goes to great lengths to dub it a fabrication.

In other words, the judge as evidenced by his report did not ask Prabhakar a single question, about any of the allegations he was asked to probe.

Does it make you wonder why?

In his summation, Justice Chandrachud refers to the Sharjah match of 1991, in these words: "3. The incident mentioned in clause (a) above is falsified by the statement of Sanjay Manjerekar, which I accept as true. He says that the match at Sharjah against Pakistan in October 1991 started late. He and Manoj Prabhakar were on the right path when the umpire said that the light was bad. There was only a brief stoppage in the game. Manjrekar has stated categorically that he and Manoj did not go back to the Pavilion and the statement made by Manoj Prabhakar is wholly untrue. Manjrekar's statement accords with the probabilities of the case."

The judge says Prabhakar's statements in this particular case are untrue. Which statements? The judge never even asked Prabhakar to make any, on the incident in question. Does this make you wonder what the judge was talking about?

Or is he referring to the Outlook statement? In it, Manoj says that he and Manjrekar were out there, it was getting dark, the two batsmen wanted to go off, but were asked to continue by the management, and he adds that he has wondered why.

Which is precisely what Ashok Mankad, the manager of the team, says -- that it was dark, that light had been offered to the batsmen, that he had instructed them to continue, and not take the offer of light.

That is what Kiran More, who went in to bat after Prabhakar, says as well. Adding that it was suicidal, and he couldn't understand why the management was asking them to play on.

The statements of Mankad and More are here for your reference.

So how does Prabhakar become, in the words of the judge, a liar?

Never mind, that is just a tangential point that arose while discussing the question of the moment.

Manoj Prabhakar was part of the team, and actually on the ground, at the moment when there was the mix up about whether or no the management wanted play to continue in that game in Sharjah on October 23, 1991.

Manoj Prabhakar was not part of any team at any time when Sohail and Azhar were captains and tossed together.

That does not make the judge's statement, that Sohail and Azhar have never tossed together, true.

It leaves the question of how Prabhakar knew what was claimed after the toss, and what was said in the dressing room.

Did he have to be in the team and present at the ground to know that?

Ali Bacher has claimed that two World Cup games were fixed -- was he a member of the Pakistan team, the Bangladesh team, or even the SA team, to have known that?

Two days before the quarterfinal of the 1996 World Cup in Bangalore, every journalist worth his salt knew Wasim Akram would pull ouut with an injured shoulder. None of us were members of the Pakistan team, or privy to their counsels. So how did we know?

Regularly, a day before the selection committee meeting, most newspapers release the team as it will be selected. The journalists concerned are not selectors, we are not sitting in the committee meetings, we are not privy to the thoughts of the selectors. How do we know?

Because you don't have to be physically present at a venue. If you are an insider in an industry, you know pretty much what is going on there. Various journalists in their depositions have pointed fingers at various games -- none of them, as far as I know, have ever played for India, however.

So do you then turn around and dismiss all that the journalists have alleged, on the grounds that not having played for India, they couldn't have known what they were talking about?

Nowhere does Prabhakar say he was a member of the team -- what he says is that there were instances when the way the game was played looked suspicious, and as part of that statement, mentions this as an instance in point.

Please note, this is not a brief for Prabhakar -- as far as that goes, we still believe that the only way the former cricketer can do service to the game and to all of us is to march in to the office of the investigating police authorities and name names. The time has come for show-and-tell, and if Prabhakar continues to delay and dally, then his motives are going to be as suspect as Chandrachud's.

The only point of this piece is to try and clear up the confusion prevailing over that particular statement about the Sohail-Azhar toss episode.

And yes, if there are further queries, we will gladly answer them -- irrespective of what some readers think, neither Rediff as an organisation, nor I personally, have any stake in falsifying facts, or hiding behind falsehoods.

And yes, Mr DesiBhai, you can bet on that.

Prem Panicker