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Scandal vindicates crusade, says Prabhakar

Former Indian Test cricketer Manoj Prabhakar, who made allegations about corruption in cricket, on Saturday said match-fixing accusations against South Africa vindicated his charges.

"Frankly speaking, money has become the name of the game these days," Prabhakar told the Hindustan Times. "The entire system is bad."

New Delhi police on Friday said charges of criminal conspiracy had been registered against South African skipper Hansie Cronje and his teammates Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom for fixing matches during last month's one-day series in India.

Cronje has denied the charges.

Four years ago, Prabhakar had accused an unnamed team mate of offering him 25,000 dollars to play badly in a one-day match in Sri Lanka in 1993.

"Nobody is playing for the country anymore," the former all-rounder told the Hindustan Times daily.

"Money is the cricketers' dharma (religion), iman (credo)."

Prabhakar called for strong action against erring players, saying: "They should be banned forever. I agree with (former Indian captain) Sunil Gavaskar when he says that match-fixers' records should be erased."

"Tell me, where are those people who blamed me when I raised these issues of betting and match-fixing? Then they were after me. I still maintain that such things have been going on in cricket for a long time."

Prabhakar reiterated that he "had been offered money.

"The authorities never had the courtesy to listen to my views," he said. "In fact, I also wanted to help in cleaning it up, but they never took me or my views seriously."

He said he was shaken by the latest scandal.

"Oh no, not South Africans! I'm really shocked. I always thought if there was one clean cricket team in the world, it was South Africa.

"Other nations could do it but never South Africa. They were so keen to play international cricket. They looked so committed. I just can't believe that they could do it," he said.

Prabhakar also struck a combative note saying he was "not scared" of "meeting these people" who had dismissed his allegations earlier.

"Nor am I afraid (of) meeting them one-to-one anywhere -- in court, public or media. I've appeared so many times on TV and discussed these issues but these people never turned up."

Prabhakar also slammed the International Cricket Council for inaction and "acting like ostriches thinking match-fixing does not exist" or trying to make "a fool of everyone."