Tainted cricketers appear before BCCI disciplinary committee

Their careers in danger of being finished for good, players implicated in the IPL spot-fixing scandal today deposed before the BCCI disciplinary panel which will decide their fate after deliberating on Anti Corruption chief Ravi Sawani's report which has held them guilty.
Five cricketers -- S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila, Ankeet Chavan, Harmeet Singh and Siddharth Trivedi -- deposed before the three-member disciplinary committee, headed by BCCI President N srinivasan.
The scandal, which broke out in May, had shaken the cash-rich Twenty20 event and led to a massive churning within the Board.
"All the disciplinary committee members were very cooperative and it went off well. I gave them my side of the story. All I have dreamt from childhood is to play for India and I will never cheat the game," Sreesanth said after appearing before the committee.

"There was no argument with the committee, they were very cooperative. They haven't said anything about the ban. I have full faith in the judiciary as well as the BCCI and I will come clean on this whole issue," added the 30-year-old former Test pacer, who was clad in a white shirt and blue denim jeans and was accompanied by a friend, Manoj.
The five players' deposition came even as Sawani's report was discussed by the BCCI committee, which apart from Srinivasan, comprises Board vice-Presidents Arun Jaitley and Niranjan Shah.

Sawani has held Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan guilty of conceding a "pre-determined number of runs per over in exchange for bribes."

Trivedi and 21-year-old Harmeet were cleared of the spot-fixing charges, but were found guilty of not reporting the approaches made by bookmakers.
Sawani has recommended bans ranging from five years to lifetime for the players, who even served jail time before being granted bails.