By Trevor Marshallsea
February 16, 2004
Shane Warne was seen during the 1999 World Cup in the company of an Indian gambler who remains the subject of investigations into match fixing, according to an explosive new report.
India's Outlook magazine has published the claim that Warne and West Indian batsman Brian Lara were seen emerging from a London pizza restaurant with Delhi-based punter Ratan Mehta.
The allegation is reportedly contained in a statement tendered to the International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit by an unidentified Indian businessman, which details startling claims of match fixing involving Mehta at the 1999 tournament.
Last night, Warne's brother and manager, Jason, told the Herald that the champion cricketer was unavailable for comment, but he was confident his brother would not have been involved in any wrongdoing.
"I'm sure there wouldn't have been anything untoward going on," Jason Warne said. "If he was in the company of someone who was involved in match fixing, I'm sure Shane wouldn't have known that guy was involved in any of that. It would have been fairly innocent." The Indian businessman's statement makes no suggestion that Warne or Lara were in any way connected with match fixing, which is said to have involved Indian and Pakistani cricketers.
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The link made between Warne and Mehta, however, will be the last thing the leg-spinner wants as he begins his comeback from a year-long drugs ban. It will also revive Warne's infamous past - accepting $5000 in 1994-95 from an Indian bookmaker known only as "John" to provide information about pitch and weather conditions. The then Australian Cricket Board fined Warne $8000 for accepting the money.
Outlook reported that in confidential correspondence with the Pakistan Cricket Board, the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit suggested Mehta fixed the result of a Super Six match at the tournament between Pakistan and India, which was won comfortably by India after they had scored only 227.
The unit's chief, Paul Condon, had referred to a statement given by a high-flying Delhi businessman to the unit when it visited India in September, 2002. The explosive three-page statement carries allegations that he witnessed Mehta making phone calls to cricketers to fix the India-Pakistan match.
"Two or three days after the India-Pakistan match," the statement says, "I bumped into Mehta again. This time he was coming out of the Pizza Pomodoro restaurant in Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge. He was with Shane Warne, Brian Lara and another cricketer, whose name I cannot be sure of."
Jason Warne noted this alleged meeting came years after Warne rejected an approach from Pakistan cricketer Salim Malik. "When Shane was offered money [from Malik] he reported it to officials. I'm sure he was not going to have any thoughts about getting involved a few years after that."
