CHENNAI, May 19: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said on Sunday it will wait for a verdict from their disciplinary committee before taking any action against three players arrested for alleged spot-fixing in the ongoing domestic Twenty20 league.

“We’ve asked [BCCI anti-corruption chief] Ravi Sawani to submit a report to the disciplinary committee and if the committee says they are guilty, we will take stern action,” BCCI President Narainswamy Srinivasan said during a press conference. “We have to observe all channels of natural justice. If the players are found guilty, we will not hesitate to act ruthlessly.”

Discarded Test paceman Shanthakumaran Sreesanth as well as Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan have been provisionally suspended by the BCCI after their arrest by Delhi Police for spot-fixing, which involves performing in a pre-determined way at set times for the benefit of gamblers. All three players represented a Rajasthan-based team.

Srinivasan said the BCCI would bolster their discipline programme but were limited in how much they could do.

“Henceforth all player agents will have to be accredited by the BCCI and an anti-corruption official will travel with each team. But we’re handicapped when it comes to control over bookies. It is for the police to act, we don’t have the powers,” Srinivasan said.

The Indian police said they had widened their probe into cricket spot-fixing after the arrest of three players and 11 bookmakers, warning that more teams were under the microscope.

Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said players for some of the other eight teams involved in the ongoing competition were now under suspicion.

“It is still early but some other teams are also involved” in the rigging, Kumar said by phone. “It is not established yet but we are looking into that,” the police chief said.

Spot-fixing is an illegal activity in which a specific part of a game, but not the outcome, is fixed.

Kumar did not disclose the identity of teams now under the widened police investigation but said he was ‘hopeful’ of a breakthrough.

The Mail Today newspaper also quoted Kumar as saying “there could be much more grime and dirt than we anticipated”.

“Many more players and teams have now come under our microscope; the conspiracy is much, much larger,” Kumar told the daily.

The Press Trust of India reported that the Rajasthan Royals, which is co-owned by Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, would also press criminal charges against Sreesanth, Chavan and Chandila.

The news agency said police have asked hotels in cities such as Mumbai, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Hyderabad for footage of their security cameras to try and establish that the players met bookmakers also now in police custody.—Agencies