Mumbai Test and Cochin ODI in 2000 were fixed, reveals Delhi Police

The 2000 match-fixing scandal involving then South African captain and the country’s unquestionable cult hero Hansie Cronje was one of the darkest chapters in the history of the sport, with Delhi police arresting two Indian bookies Sanjeev Chawla and Rajesh Kalra. When Cronje revealed the truth of it in front of Ali Bacher, things took a different turn and Chawla was arrested. 

“In furtherance of this conspiracy, the 1st Test Match at Mumbai and 1st One-Day International at Cochin were fixed and the same resulted in wrongful gain to the accused and wrongful loss in general to the public at large, who had gone believing that they would perform optimally. The accused persons have thus committed offences punishable under sections 420 and 120B of IPC,” the report read.

“It was decided that the South African team will not score more than 250 runs in an innings. Though the South African team won the Test in three days, this was attributed to a very poor performance by India. The Indian team had batted first and scored 225 and the South African team scored only 176. In the 2nd innings, India scored a mere 113 and the South African team won the match by scoring 164 runs only. Thus, the South African team did not score more than 250 runs in both the innings, as committed by accused Hansie Cronje to the fixers. Thus, this match was a fixed one.”