‘Bowled badly, yet batsmen failed to score’

Chandila played to script but couldn’t deliver

S Ahmed Ali TNN

Mumbai: Delhi-based bookie Ashwini Aggarwal alias Tinku has told the Mumbai crime branch that he lost Rs 80 lakh betting on IPL matches after his plans, in association with Nagpur bookie Sunil Bhatia and arrested cricketer Ajit Chandila, to fix the off-spinner’s overs in two matches went awry.
    Tinku said he lost the money for a match played on April 17 between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals (RR) and for another one played between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals on April 22. Tinku said he had met Chandila, Ankeet Chavan and Bhatia at Delhi’s Ashoka hotel a few days earlier, where he paid Chandila Rs 20 lakh to fix the overs. The cricketer agreed on the condition that he will start fixing after the first three matches.
    As per the deal, Chandila was to concede 14 runs in an over in the April 17 match. Initially, it was decided that Chandila will signal by waving a white-coloured wrist watch at the audience but Tinku shot it down saying it would be difficult to spot at night.
    Chandila then suggested that he would kiss the Hanuman pendent he was wearing and look upwards. The match was played at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, where Bhatia was also present.
    Tinku told the police that Bhatia instructed him to bet Rs 30 lakh immediately after Chandila gave the signal. Unfortunately, the batsman could only make six runs in the two overs that Chandila bowled. After the match, when Bhatia asked about the fiasco, Chandila shot back that though he did give an opportunity for the batsmen to make runs, they did not utilize it. He asked what could he do if the batsmen failed to score runs even after he bowled loose balls.
    Tinku wanted to make good the losses in the April 22 match played between CSK and RR and again Chandila was to give a similar signal before bowling the ‘fixed’ over. “Tinku was very confident and bet Rs 30 lakh again thinking this time Chandila would do as he was told. But Tinku lost again,” said a police officer on the condition of anonymity.
    Tinku told the police that a group of 12 key bookies, including himself, Sunil Abhichandani, film producer Prakash Chandani, Sobhan Mehta, Chandresh Jain alias Jupiter and Devendra Kothari, had taken Rs 60 lakh from a chit fund to place bets. Each of them used to invest Rs 5 lakh every month and Tinku was the first to take Rs 60 lakh from the fund.
    He also told the police that prior to the IPL, he had gone to Dubai, where he met Sunil Abhichandani and Pakistani bookies Dr Javed and Salman. There were reports that when Tinku met Bhatia in Delhi’s Tihar jail, he allegedly bashed up Bhatia in a fit of rage.
TN cops to question ‘Victor’ tomorrow Chennai: The Tamil Nadu CB-CID will soon pore over hundreds of hours of CCTV footage collected from Hotel Radisson Blu, Chennai, to see who all frequented a special room that the owner, Vikram Agrawal alias Victor, had allegedly converted into a virtual control room for betting operations. Agrawal, who was let off by the Mumbai crime branch after three days of questioning, will appear before the CB-CID on Wednesday. TNN

Delhi bookie Tinku told Mumbai crime branch cops that he lost Rs 80 lakh betting on Chandila conceding 14 runs in his over