West Indies Cricket Board has refused to comment on reports that two of their senior players have been implicated in the Indian match-fixing investigation.

In response to an article in the Sunday Telegraph in the UK, which named four Indian players who feature in the CBI report and claimed that "AT LEAST TWO WEST INDIAN PLAYERS, UN-NAMED, WERE ALSO INVOLVED" Patrick Rousseau, the President of the West Indies Cricket Board said:

"Like everyone else, I have read the newspaper report. However, it would be improper for me to comment on this situation now, since, firstly, no West Indians were actually named in the article, and secondly, the actual report will be published shortly.

"Until such time that the report is published, and/or West Indian players are actually named, neither I nor the West Indies Cricket Board could comment."

It should be remembered that during the English tour by the West Indies earlier this summer, Mr. Rousseau had confirmed to the press Corp that he had had a conversation with West Indian master batsman, Mr. Brian Lara, as regards another article, published in the English Press (not the Sunday Telegraph), about some mini-accusation of a similar sort.

Mr. Rousseau confirmed that he had been assured then by Mr. Lara that no such activity had taken place, and no more was heard of the incident.

While rumour is rife in the Caribbean as to whom the two players could be, there were no real "favourites" for the positions. At least six names have been mentioned in the rumours in the Caribbean over the weekend.

The game in question, though, which brings about these queries, is the 1996 World Cup qualifying game between the West Indies and Kenya, at Pune, India. The might of the then West Indies, including Sherwin Campbell, Richie Richardson (captain), Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Roger Harper, Ian Bishop, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, contained Kenya well to have them 166 all out in just under 50 overs.

However, the West Indies managed a total batting debacle to be dismissed for 93 in 35.2 overs, with only two batsmen, Chanderpaul (19) and Harper (17), getting into double figures, thus losing, embarrassingly so, by 73 runs, to the then minnows of world cricket.

Dickie Rutnagur, writing in the Daily Telegraph then, suggested that "this must be the greatest upset in the history of World Cup Cricket."

A euphoric Maurice Odumbe, the Kenyan captain, who was made "Man of the Match" for his 3-15 from 10 overs when the West Indies batted, suggested afterwards:

"This is the greatest thing to happen to Kenyan cricket. The West Indies are our idols, so it is great to beat our idols. This shows that Kenya has arrived to be with the big boys in world cricket."

It is something of a great irony that another such "upset", when another cricketing minnow, Bangladesh, beat Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup at Northampton, England, is also supposed to be under the microscope as regards match-fixing.

This story is not yet finished yet and it will be some time before it disappears!!

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