PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – West Indies leg-spinner Samuel Badree has denied involvement in any impropriety after his name surfaced on Friday in a report arising from an investigation into alleged match-fixing during last year’s Indian Premier League.
Badree, who has only played Twenty20s for West Indies, was one of three players whose named were inadvertently announced by Justice TS Thakur in a Delhi Court. The others are India’s Stuart Binny and England’s Owais Shah.
However, Badree told the Trinidad Express newspaper he had no knowledge of the matter and denied any involvement in the scandal.
“It is first time I have seen this. I have not been contacted and I did not even know that this investigation was going on or that my name would have even been mentioned,” said Badree.
“I would have played with Rajasthan Royals in the particular season they are talking about in 2013 and a couple players from the Rajasthan Royals were involved in spot fixing, so I suppose that through the investigation they would have come up with other names of persons who would have been in the team and so on.”
He added: “But I have no part in match-fixing or spot fixing, and as a matter of fact, in that season I played one game with Rajasthan Royals and I am very confused about how my name was in that report, especially without even being told about it prior to reading it on the internet this morning.”
Badree, who now represents Champions League Twenty20 winners, Chennai Super Kings, is one of the world’s leading T20 bowlers and currently sits on top the ICC T20 bowlers’ rankings.
The 33-year-old has taken 31 wickets from 22 T20 Internationals and has captured 102 T20 wickets overall from the same number of outings.
Badree said he was puzzled his name had surfaced in the controversial issue.
“I am waiting for further information because I don’t even know what context my name was mentioned in. I am strongly against any kind of match-fixing or spot fixing,” Badree added.
ICC president Narainswamy Srinivasan has been named in the report along with Sundar Raman, the IPL chief operating officer; Gurunath Meiyappan, a Chennai Super Kings official and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra. (CMC)