Tucking in a towel, rotating the wristband and pulling the T-shirt up and down — all seemingly innocuous actions during a cricket match.
But this was how the three cricketers, who were arrested today for spot fixing in IPL matches, allegedly gave signals to bookies who had hundreds of crores of bets at stake.
For giving more time to their bookies for placing the bets, the accused Rajasthan Royals players — S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan — also allegedly wasted time so that enough money was placed on bets across the country, police said.
If the players failed to give the required signal, the money was lost as it happened in the case of Chandila.
Chandila was supposed to allegedly pull up his shirt to signify the start of the manipulated over but he forgot to give the signal.
Even though he conceded the agreed 14 runs but having forgotten to give the signal, the bookies could not place any bets.
“This led to a lot of arguments and demand for return of money (Rs 20 lakh) advanced to him. Another Rs 20 lakh was to be given after the match. Chandila had to return the money,” Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar told reporters.
In Sreeshant’s case, he was to tuck in a towel just before bowling the manipulated over.
In the first over, he bowled without a towel tucked into his trowsers and in the second over, he had one, police said referring to the conversations allegedly between bookies and the bowler’s close friend Jiju, the alleged conduit.
“To give bookies time, Sreeshant did some warm-up and stretching exercises,” he said.
For Chavan, the signal was rotating the wrist band.