Sports minister Ajay Maken on Tuesday said the onus lies with the BCCI as far as the IPL spot-fixing is concerned and has asked the board to take prompt action in the interest of the millions of cricket fans in the country.
"I am sure and wish that BCCI acts fast, goes into the root cause of this problem and solves the problem in the interest of the millions of fans in cricket in our country," said Maken.
The Sports Minister also hoped that the BCCI would sort out the issue at the earliest.
"I have just seen part of what all of you have seen in the sting operation. I am very sure...you all know that in cricket, in other sports also and not only in India but elsewhere also we occasionally hear such things happening.
"But the challenge and the opportunity here lies with the BCCI as to how far they are able to go to the root cause, go to the bottom of the problem and sort it out," said Maken.
The channel, India TV, yesterday claimed it had done a sting operation in which many players confessed on hidden camera they get much more than their prescribed auction under the table. According to the channel, its operation also revealed that spot-fixing is not only prevalent in IPL but also that first class matches are fixed and women played an important role in match-fixing. Superstars of Indian cricket and even an international player, who is a captain of one of the teams, are involved in fixing the matches, the channel said in a statement.
Kings XI Punjab player Shalabh Srivastava, Mohnish Mishra of Pune Warriors, T P Sudhindra of Deccan Chargers and Amit Yadav of Kings XI Punjab are shown in the sting operation.