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Fleming rejected Indian bookie's offer

Source: PTI
November 07, 2004 19:06 IST
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New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming claims he was offered 370,200 USD by an Indian businessman to join a match-fixing syndicate in 1999.

Fleming has detailed the incident in his newly-released book "Balance Of Power", written by journalist Richard Boock.

The Kiwi skipper says he was approached in the bar of the team's Leicester hotel during the 1999 World Cup in England by a man later identified as sports promoter Aushim Khetrapal, an associate of Indian bookmaker Sanjeev Chawla.

"He said 'if you want to know where the real money is, it's in the syndicate that's going on around the world right now, speculating on the likelihood of certain results of occurrences'," Fleming writes, according to a report in the Australian Associated Press on Sunday.

"He said there were top athletes involved, and did I notice that Manchester United had been upset the other day, and that Andre Agassi had been eliminated from a major. He said 'look those things are not coincidences'. I said, "Really?"

Fleming said Khetrapal claimed there were people all over the world that he could call at certain times, and then offered him the chance to join the syndicate.

"He'd pay me 200,000 pounds straight up, then another 100,000-pound in a year's time. I remember looking at the numbers he'd written down and saying, 'look; I don't think we should be talking about this. I don't really want to be part of this at all."

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Fleming said he was stunned by the approach and informed team manager John Graham and gave a statement to Scotland Yard detectives who flew to New Zealand in 2000.

Six months later, England allrounder Chris Lewis went public with similar claims. Khetrapal denied the allegation that he offered 300,000-pound to Lewis to persuade England players to throw a Test against New Zealand.

Fleming also touches on the marijuana smoking controversy on the 1994 South Africa tour, after which New Zealand Cricket suspended him, Dion Nash and Matthew Hart.

He also details his fallout with NZC Chief Executive Martin Snedden during the New Zealand players' strike of 2002.

He writes how Snedden, angry at Fleming's lack of involvement in the prolonged negotiations, summoned him to a meeting after the issue was resolved.

"He gave it to me between the eyes, as well as a letter that formally reprimanded me for my behaviour," Fleming wrote.

"I thought he went a bit over the top and over-reacted to his own perception of my involvement in the whole thing. I was very much on the defensive. It was bad enough that I felt my captaincy was up for grabs. There was definitely that feeling in the air."

Fleming also felt NZC erred in appointing Denis Aberhart as coach before John Bracewell took over in December last year.

"I knew Denis' strengths and I knew what he could give. I also knew what he couldn't give. I said back then, "The time is not right for a coach of Denis' style.

"Instead of pushing forward as a team we were floundering, trying to do the same old things, only better..."

Fleming also provides an account of the Karachi bomb, which killed 14 people outside the team hotel and cut short the 2002 tour of Pakistan.

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