Ex-IPL scout held for duping cricketers

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch has arrested a former talent hunt partner associated with an Indian Premier League (IPL) team Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2014, for allegedly duping at least 15 budding cricketers to the tune of over Rs 68 lakh. He cheated young cricketers by promising them berths in the IPL T-20 tournament and Ranji cricket teams.

The accused, whose contract was terminated by the IPL team in 2014 on technical grounds, would take the young cricketers to Hyderabad and make them play with random teams.

He would then send the players back, saying that there was a technical fault in their style.

The police has also arrested two aides of the accused who run a city-based sports club, RN Sports Club.

A team of property cell of crime branch, including Vinayak Mer, Deep Bane and Lakshmikant Salunke laid traps and arrested Vijay Barate (40) from Bhusaval, Jeevan Mukadam (26) from Pune and Dinesh More (24) from Thane.

While Barate posed as the chief of the RN Sports Club, Mukadam claimed to be its manager and More, their in-house coach.

“They would go to playgrounds like Shivaji Park and other cricket hotspots. They would approach the coaches and claim that they were looking for talented budding cricketers. They would claim to give them a break in IPL or Ranji matches and would strike a deal. In order to influence the victims, they would distribute caps and T-shirts of Sunrisers Hyderabad, with whom they were previously associated," said a crime branch officer.

They would charge amounts ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh depending on the number of players, officials said. The accused would plan trips for the victims to Hyderabad, where they would play with random cricket teams and after a stay of around a month, they would send them back.

"They would tell cricketers that they were rejected as they lacked technique or style. One of the victims approached crime branch after the trio did not refund the money. A case was registered with the Chembur police a month ago, and we began the probe," added the officer.

The officials are expecting more victims to approach them in coming days. The trio has been remanded to police custody till December 4, for further investigation.

Bowled Out
In October, a similar racket of fake cricket recruiters was busted at Oval Maidan in Churchgate. A gang promised to help budding cricketers make their way into an IPL team for 2018. After a complaint was filed at Marine Drive police station, Harvinder Singh, Satendra Singh and Ravindra Gupta alias Ravinder Garg were arrested. At least 15 aspirants were made to pay Rs 2,500 each for registration. After promising them that they would be part of a camp at Chandigarh, the victims were eliminated from the list claiming that they don't have a proper diet and playing style.