'If bowler was fixed, what was batsman doing?' court to cops

"If the bowler was fixed, what was the batsman doing?" the query was posed by a Delhi court to the investigators today.

The court said it was posing this query as it wanted to know if the Delhi Police was probing the role of any batsman in the spot-fixing case.

"If the bowler was fixed, what was the batsman doing? How come the bowler was giving 13 runs and batsman also made that many runs? What if he could not make that many runs?

"Who was the batsman when Chavan was bowling? There must have been something under his control also, after all, he has made runs.

"I wonder how can bowler give away runs without the batsman," Additional Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Khanna asked.

The judge's posers came during arguments on the interim bail plea of suspended Rajasthan Royals cricketer Ankeet Chavan.

Additional Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan and the police officials told the court that they are not probing the role of any other player or batsman.

They said they have evidence to establish that "Chavan was fixed".

While opposing Chavan's interim bail plea, Mohan submitted that Chavan had promised to give 13 runs in second over in a match on May 15 between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals.

There is a recorded telephonic conversation to the effect that Ankeet is ready to give 13 runs for Rs 60 lakh and the same evening, he gave those many runs, he said.

It was this submission which prompted the judge to ask whether any batsman was fixed in the match or not.

Mohan said, "After Ankeet gave away the runs in the fixed over, there is an intercepted conversation between Ajit Chadila and a fixer congratulating that Ankeet has done his job and now he has to be paid.