Reports: Legal action taken by MS Dhoni against "fixing allegations"
Indian limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has sent a legal notice to a newspaper which had alleged that he had fixed the Manchester Test during India’s 2014 tour of England.
The Hindi daily quoted Sunil Dev, who was the manager of the Indian team on the England tour of 2014, and alleged that the then Indian Test captain Dhoni had fixed the Manchester Test match.
The newspaper had quoted Dev as saying that he had been surprised that Dhoni had opted to bat first on the wet Manchester pitch, especially when it had been decided in the team meeting that India will field first, should the toss be won.
Indian went on to lose the match in less than three days by an innings and 54 runs and also lost the five-match Test series 3-1. Dhoni managed to score 71 in the match, but the rest of the batsmen failed to put up any kind of resistance as India collapsed for 152 in 46.4 overs.
A false propaganda: Dhoni’s lawyers
Reacting to the report, Dhoni’s Delhi-based lawyers C&C Associates have sent a nine-page legal notice.
“The said video contains footage of an absolute dubious sting operation of the aforementioned Mr. Sunil Dev, which in the present circumstances is nothing but a false propaganda initiated by you to defame my client”, the notice says.
“In fact, the so-called Indian cricket official who you have credited to be the source of information has strongly denied the incident.”
Rajneesh Chopra and Pratik Malik, who are Dhoni’s lawyers have asked the publishers to issue denials to the report in the next 48-hours or face a legal case against them.
The notice said, “Our client (Dhoni) reserves the right to institute proceedings for the recovery of damages up to Rs 100 crores from you on account of the defamation, mental agony and trauma caused to him due to this by causing loss of his reputation.”
After the news came out by a Hindi daily through a string operation, Sunil Dev, the former DDCA secretary came out in vociferous denial of any such allegations.
Sunil Dev is senior cricket administrator, but he was barred from being DDCA Chief by the High Court. With his recent flip-flop, his reputation has only gotten worse.
This legal notice is a tough statement from the India skipper amid this fixing saga.