Azhar's world in ruins

Mohammad Azharuddin is one of the three or four most successful Indian cricketers of all time. The tall, slim batsman from a lower middle-class home in Hyderabad in southern India scored a century on his first appearance for his country, against England at Calcutta, in 1984. In his next two Tests he scored two more.

Mohammad Azharuddin is one of the three or four most successful Indian cricketers of all time. The tall, slim batsman from a lower middle-class home in Hyderabad in southern India scored a century on his first appearance for his country, against England at Calcutta, in 1984. In his next two Tests he scored two more.

He has captained the national side for most of the last 10 years; in 1990 Wisden named him one of their five cricketers of the year. He was dropped from the Indian team in September only because, in the words of India's chief of selectors, Chandrakant Borde, he would not be "in the best frame of mind".

How is Azharuddin's frame of mind today? No one except those closest to him can say for sure. One of his former team- mates also fingered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Ajay Jadeja, braved a press conference in Bombay yesterday to explain himself, but since the CBI submitted their explosive report to the Indian government last Monday, Azharuddin has not said a word in public. He has been cooped up at home in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, for almost a week.

But his frame of mind is unlikely to be good. Azhar, as he is known for short, has been the main object of gossip and rumour about match-fixing in India for many months. He was the only Indian cricketer to be named by Hansie Cronje in his confession - Cronje claimed it was Azharuddin who introduced him to the Indian bookies who led him down the slippery slope. Now the CBI have confirmed that India's long-standing captain, the man with ball-bearings instead of bones in his wrists, is indeed a central figure, perhaps the central figure, in cricket's worst scandal.

The CBI's report claims that under interrogation Azharuddin admitted receiving money from the Delhi-based bookmaker Mukesh Gupta to fix matches, but that he claimed he only "did" two matches, one in 1996 and one in 1997. The CBI comment: "This admission... appears a dilution of the actual facts in the context of the amount of money he had received from MK [i.e. Gupta]." But the CBI appear only to have scratched the surface of Azhar's outrages. Other charges levelled against him include the following:

^* Implicated in fixing a one-day series between India and South Africa this spring - at a total cost to bookmakers of between $400,000 and $500,000.

^* Linked to several bookmakers besides Mukesh Gupta, who is the main source for the CBI revelations. These include one Shobha Mehta, described as a "henchman" of Chhota Rajan, a top Bombay gangster who recently survived an assassination attempt in Bangkok.

* Described by Justice Y V Chandrachud during an inquiry into match-fixing in 1997 as being "the worst case". The Indian judge studied lists of Azharuddin's earnings during his 14 years as a professional cricketer. The judge said: "I know this is the worst case. If you ask him [Azharuddin] he will say they were gifts from friends and admirers. But tell me, how many would give away flats and expensive cars?"

Azharuddin, the CBI report makes clear, is in a different league from the other players it names. He did not merely take money for specific favours, but also lured other players into the scam. "It is clear," the report states, "that Azharuddin contributed substantially towards the expanding bookie-player nexus in Indian cricket. There is... evidence... that he roped in other players to fix matches which resulted in this malaise making further inroads into Indian cricket."

For the reticent, pious South Indian Muslim whom Viv Richards once named as his favourite Indian batsman, it has been a long, strange trip. In contrast to the swaggering Punjabis (Kapil Dev) and the smart Bombayites (Sachin Tendulkar), Azhar in his early days was Indian cricket's goody-two-shoes: didn't drink, didn't smoke, prayed five times a day, rode a pushbike. He got married to Naureen, the home-loving girl his parents picked for him, and appeared to dote on their two small sons.

If Indian investigators push further, perhaps they will pinpoint the moment when Azhar started going to the bad. Perhaps it was the day in 1995 at the Taj Palace Hotel, in Delhi, when he met Mukesh Gupta. Whatever the precise occasion, his moral decline seems to have gone closely in tandem with the transformation of Indian cricket that followed India's first moves towards economic liberalisation in 1991.

Satellite television came to India, breaking the state's broadcasting monopoly; live broadcasting of matches made cricket betting possible. One-day internationals mushroomed; a venue called Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, convenient for Indian gangsters living in exile in the Gulf, became more and more popular and, at length, notorious.

Suddenly India's cricketers were rolling in money: all those named in the CBI report are said to be worth at least 100m rupees ( around £1.6m) each. In the case of the "master blaster" Tendulkar (exonerated in the CBI report), the income came from innumerable sponsorship deals.

But Azhar? He wore platinum watches worth $15,000 (he possessed two), he had two plush flats in Bombay, he was Indian cricket's nattiest dresser, he drove flashy foreign cars. Indians, who are not naïve about such matters, narrowed their eyes; where was all the loot coming from?

The gossip grew thunderous. And it wasn't merely the material side. In 1996 he shocked conservative Hyderabad when he divorced Naureen and married Sangeeta Bijlani, a beauty queen turned starlet. His settlement to Naureen was 9.9m rupees, nearly £150,000 - another sum that astonished Indian fans.

"Cricket is the pillar of my life, my top priority," Azharuddin told an Indian journalist last year, before the storm broke. "That's why I want to set up an academy in Hyderabad. I'll always be with the game."

And it is indeed unlikely that India will ever forget this lanky, vulpine batsman with the magic wrists... but for all the wrong reasons.