Zimbabwe’s captain Graeme Cremer was contacted first on Whatsapp and then received a phone call from Nayer. (Source: AP)
When former director of Zimbabwe Cricket Rajan Nayer made the phone call to Graeme Cremer in October last year to enquire if the all-rounder would agree to fix Test matches for $30,000, the offer came from an Indian businessman. Cremer turned down the offer and reported the approach to the ICC. On Tuesday, Nayer was suspended for 20 years from all cricket-related activity by the International Cricket Council under its anti-corruption code.
Just weeks before the two-Test series against West Indies at home, Nayer, who was the treasurer and marketing director of Harare Metropolitan Cricket, had met three Indians to discuss sponsorship for a domestic T20 tournament, according to ‘background facts’ released by the ICC on Tuesday.
One of these men had been on the radar of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit. This person, referred to as ‘X’ in the order, asked Nayer during a subsequent telephone conversation if he thought Cremer, the Zimbabwe captain, would be open to fixing Test matches for money. Though Nayer said that he wasn’t the ‘right person’ for this, he agreed to call Cremer with the intention of asking him to fix matches.
Nayer first got in touch with Cremer via Whatsapp on October 9 and then phoned the captain the next day, 11 days before the first Test in Bulawayo. It is during this late evening call that Nayer asked Cremer if he would be interested in fixing matches for thousands of dollars.
Cremer recalls this conversation in an interview to the ICC. “Rajan, who I know quiet well, messaged me and said he needed to meet urgently but I said ‘I can’t meet you’ because he was obviously in Harare, but I said ‘you can call anytime’. And then he called me the next day and told me that there was a guy in Dubai who wanted me to throw games or fix games… I can’t remember the term he used. From there, he went on to tell me that there would be no third party involved, the package would come straight to me. And then he said that guy would be phoning him back that evening. ‘Can I tell him you would think about it’? And that is when I told him I was not interested,” Cremer says.
Nayer, according to the ICC verdict, indicated that he thought it would be the case (Cremer would turn it down) but asked the player to keep the matter (details of the phone call) confidential. Nayer also called up ‘X’ and informed the businessman that Cremer wasn’t interested in fixing games. When questioned by ACU officials, Nayer admitted to making the offer to Cremer. However, he claimed that he had decided to phone Cremer because he wanted ‘X’ and his colleagues to sponsor the proposed T20 event. According to Nayer, ‘X’ had promised him $20,000 if he could help seal the deal with the national cricket board for sponsorship of the proposed T20 event for $200,000.
“I had never been in that situation before and I wasn’t sure how to react to it and it played on my mind for a couple of hours. I didn’t know where to go. I knew the regulations from ICC. It was late in the evening when I got the phone call and I though of it a lot. I slept on it and then straightaway in the morning, I went to Heath Streak (Zimbabwe coach) and told him about the approach and we said the best thing is to speak to the manager and they can get hold of an ICC official,” Cremer says.
Nayer, in an email in January this year, formally admitted that he had approached Cremer. Nayer’s 20-year suspension will be backdated to the start of his provisional suspension on January 16, 2018 and as such, he will be eligible to participate in cricket from January 16, 2038.