Neeraj Kumar, the former police commissioner of Delhi, was the chief of the Anti Corruption Unit of the BCCI between 2015 and 2018. His account of those years in his book, A Cop in Cricket, is an explosive read. Part of that period was when the BCCI was under Vinod Rai, former Comptroller and Auditor General, who was appointed by the Supreme Court.
“I was not given an office, or a team. Nor did anyone ask me about corruption,” he tells Sidharth Bhatia in this podcast interview.
Kumar, with his tiny team of two persons but a good network of informants from his police years, busted the rampant match fixing that was going on in regional leagues that were being played in several states with the blessings of the state associations. “It was clear even to the naked eye that the games were fixed,” he says. The leagues were shut down and moved overseas. “But now they are coming back slowly.”
At the top level, corruption in cricket has been contained, he says. “The stakes today are huge. It all depends on the good sense of the players.”
Kumar says there is an urgent need for an anti-corruption law for sports, like in many other countries.
