MUMBAI, June 9: Ajit Wadekar has been making pathetic attempts to discredit The Indian Express for "misquoting" him on the issue of tapping the telephones of Indian cricketers he managed.

As children we were told that if you lie once, you will have to lie a thousand times in an attempt to make the first one appear true. Obviously, Wadekar had cricket on his mind during such lessons.

This newspaper had approached Wadekar for his comments on Manoj Prabhakar's allegation that an Indian player tried to bribe him (Prabhakar) with Rs 25 lakh to `tank' a match against Pakistan during the 1994 Singer Cup in Sri Lanka. The cricketer in Wadekar took over and he stood to defend the players.

Wadekar stated: ``...I kept a tap on their telephone conversations for a month or so without the players' knowledge and found absolutely nothing incriminating or objectionable...'' In response to this reporter's request, Wadekar even added the clarification that he tapped the phones of the players in their hotel rooms.

After the report appeared in these columns, Wadekar appeared to have suddenly become wiser. In an interview to a Mumbai eveninger, he said the whole thing was blown out of proportion and all he wanted to do was ``keep a `tab' of players' activities.''

Last night, in an interview to Star News, he denied having tapped the players' phones and hinted that he has been `misquoted'. ``I am not a member of the CBI or CID or, for that matter, any government agency that I am allowed to tap the telephone conversations. What I meant was it could have been one of the measures to `tab' the players' activities,'' he tried to clarify.

What is astounding is Wadekar's pathetic attempt to publicly charge this newspaper with having ``misquoted'' when he himself faxed his statement to us.

So Mr Wadekar, pray, who is lying ? The fax speaks for itself.

``When we came back from South Africa's disastrous tour, I had to implement code of conduct to make these players (sic) focus on the game as their priorities were different and not in the middle. As the rumours were (sic) afloat in the media about briberies/bookies in the cricketing world I kept a tap on their telephone conversations for a month or so without the players' knowledge and found absolutely nothing incriminating (sic) or objectionable which would have led to such a false

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.