Jadeja wants to return
to national team

In a desperate bid to return to the national team, suspended cricketer Ajay Jadeja has requested the Board of Control for Cricket in India to revoke its ban and allow him to play after reviewing all match-fixing allegations against him.

In a letter to BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya, Jadeja pleaded innocence, saying he was not guilty of the charges levelled against him and expressed his strong desire to once again play for the national team.

The BCCI chief confirmed having received the letter from Jadeja, but refused to comment either on its contents or the board's reaction to it.

"We have referred the letter to our lawyer," Dalmiya said in Calcutta on Tuesday.

Jadeja was suspended for five years from the national team on the basis of the CBI report on the match-fixing scandal in December last year. He later challenged the ban in court.

Immediately after taking over as BCCI president in September, Dalmiya made it clear that the board would fight the case filed by Jadeja and other suspended players. He had even suggested that board should fight the case jointly with the CBI, since the investigating agency had all the relevant papers and had probed the match-fixing charges, naming five people including Jadeja.

Jadeja is the first among the five persons suspended for involvement in match-fixing to formally request the board to review its stand.

The others, who were named by the CBI anti-corruption commissioner K Madhavan's report, are former skipper Mohammad Azharuddin, Manoj Prabhakar, Ajay Sharma and former physio Ali Irani.

Mail Cricket Editor