World Cup semifinal: Ganguly refutes fixing allegations

Rubbishing reports of match-fixing in 2011 World Cup semifinal against Pakistan, former captain Sourav Ganguly said Monday that India won the tournament on merit and hardwork.

“Nothing takes away from India’s World Cup win and what they achieved in the tournament. I need to know the exact the details of the allegations but please don’t take away what India did in the competition,” Ganguly said after leading Bengal to their first Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Ganguly’s comments came after England’s The Sunday Times reported that match-fixing was on the rise in international cricket and Indian bookmakers were luring players in County Cricket. The daily also claimed that the World cup semi-final in Mohali was also fixed.

Senior board official and chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Rajeev Shukla also refuted the media reports.

“Newspapers can publish anything, unless we get something concrete from an agency or ICC, I don’t thing it would be appropriate to react to it. We haven’t got anything from ICC, unless we get it from some police agency, it would be inappropriate to react to media reports,” he said.