NEW DELHI, April 16: Disgraced former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin said on Wednesday he was going to open a coaching school to groom youngsters to play the game at the highest level.

Azharuddin, 40, banned for life from cricket three years ago in the wake of the match-fixing scandal, said he planned to start a “world class” cricket academy in his home town of Hyderabad soon.

“I want to produce international cricketers for India,” Azharuddin told the NDTV news channel and stressed the life ban imposed on him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will not come in the way.

“I do not see any reason why I need to take permission to start an academy or to do commentary,” he said.

“I think I can do a lot of justice to the country. I can make sure that the academy runs well and hopefully produce international cricketers.”

The residential academy will be managed by Azharuddin’s former Hyderabad team-mate Kanwaljit Singh, one of the most successful off-spinners in domestic cricket.

Azharuddin and ex-first class cricketer Ajay Sharma were banned for life and internationals Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar handed five-year suspensions after they were named in a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) match-fixing probe in 2000.

Both Azharuddin and Jadeja challenged the BCCI decision in court, and while Jadeja was absolved of any wrong-doing in January, Azharuddin’s appeal is still pending in a court in Hyderabad.

Azharuddin’s lawyer Arun Bharadwaj was confident his client will be cleared.

“The cases (of Jadeja and Azharuddin) are very similar in nature, the allegations are similar and the BCCI’s evidence in both cases is similar and based more on hearsay than anything else,” Bharadwaj said.

“We are confident justice will be meted out to Azharuddin too.”

Azharuddin, India’s most successful Test captain and a stylish middle-order batsman, was stranded on 99 Test appearances when he was banned.

He scored 6,215 Test runs and remains one-day cricket’s second-highest scorer after team-mate Sachin Tendulkar with 9,378 runs from 334 matches.—AFP