Cricket: Life bans for Azharuddin and Sharma

8:00 AM - By ABDUL KHAN

MADRAS - The former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin and another international, Ajay Sharma, were banned from cricket for life yesterday following allegations of match-fixing.

Two other players, Ajay Jadeja and the former Test player Manoj Prabhakar, have been suspended from the game for five years by India cricket's ruling body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The decisions followed a meeting of the board's disciplinary committee to discuss a federal investigation into match-fixing.

Wicketkeeper Nayan Mongia, who was named along with the four other players in a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) report, has been exonerated.

A former team physiotherapist, Ali Irani, who was accused in the CBI report of acting as a go-between for Azharuddin and bookmaker Mukesh Gupta, was suspended from all cricketrelated activities.

The Indian government ordered a CBI probe in April after New Delhi police charged the former South African captain Hansie Cronje and three other players with match-fixing.

Azharuddin and Jadeja were dropped from the Indian squad four months ago. Prabhakar and Sharma retired from the game several years ago.

Cronje had named Azharuddin as the cricketer who introduced him to an Indian bookmaker, but the player had denied the allegations.

Azharuddin played 99 Tests and amassed a total of 6,215 runs at an average of 45.03, with a highest score of 199. He scored 22 hundreds and, as an agile fielder, took 105 catches.

In one-day internationals, Azharuddin played 334 matches and 308 innings to score 9,378 runs, with seven centuries and a top score of 153 not out.

The reticent batsman, who also played for Derbyshire in English county cricket, became India's captain in 1990. He was at the helm until 1996 and returned in 1998 after making way for Sachin Tendulkar.

Azharuddin lost the job after India's lacklustre World Cup in 1999 but rebuffed critics who questioned his age and form. His fall would certainly have been softer had he chosen to retire then.

Meanwhile, former Metropolitan police chief turned cricket corruption investigator, Sir Paul Condon, is flying to India with the Australian Cricket Board's Greg Melick this week to further their inquiries into match-fixing allegations against overseas cricketers.