Shinde congratulates Delhi Police for busting IPL spot-fixing racket

A day after Indian pacer Sreesanth and his IPL teammates Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan were arrested in connection with the IPL spot-fixing case, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Friday congratulated Delhi Police for busting the racket.

"I congratulate the Delhi Police. Whenever they did good work, I appreciate," Shinde told media here.

Meanwhile, Sreesanth and 13 others, including two cricketers of the Rajasthan Royals franchise, were sent to police custody for five days by a Delhi court for being quizzed in connection with the spot-fixing case. They have confessed to their involvement in spot fixing.

They were produced before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma at his residence adjacent to the Saket court complex yesterday.

Briefing media here on Thursday, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said that the Special Cell had hundreds of hours of recordings of phone conversations between the players and bookies, 14 of whom have also been arrested.

Kumar also gave a detailed account of the conversations that took place between bookies and the arrested Rajasthan Royals players-Sreesanth and spinners Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila.

Kumar further revealed explosive details of the modus operandi followed by bookies and the cricketers, giving audio-visual proof of three IPL matches which were manipulated.

"In certain overs they (the players) were supposed to give away a certain amount of runs. The bookies gave players instructions that they have to indicate that they would give away these runs," Kumar said.