NEW DELHI, May 31: Two top officials of the Indian cricket board quit on Friday over an escalating spot-fixing scandal, reports said.

Sanjay Jagdale, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and treasurer Ajay Shirke submitted their resignations to the board president, the NDTV news network and other channels said.

“I don’t want to give any reason, I have sent my resignation to the BCCI president,” Jagdale was quoted as saying by NDTV.

The resignations of Jagdale, the number two in the board hierarchy, and Shirke were likely to pile on more pressure on president N. Srinivasan to quit.

Srinivasan has been under fire to resign after his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan was arrested last week for allegedly betting on Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.

Police suspect that the betting racket is being controlled by international crime syndicates whose bosses are well aware of the rewards if they can manipulate events on the field in the cricket-mad region.

Earlier on Friday, Siddharth Trivedi, a paceman with Rajasthan Royals franchise, testified before a judge in a New Delhi court in the case against his team-mates.

“The testimony will be used as evidence,” a police officer, who is part of the investigating team, said on Friday.

“His statement is important because he has told us he has information on some of the bookies arrested by us,” he added.

The officer did not elaborate about the contents of Trivedi’s testimony.

“Trivedi’s statements will be admissible as evidence in the court. It will definitely make our case stronger,” the Special Cell officer said.

Local media reports on Friday said the uncapped Trivedi, who also plays for the Rajasthan Royals, had turned down an invitation by Chandila to attend a party allegedly arranged by bookies.

“He had also refused money and gifts offered by the bookies,” the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was posed the question on Friday while returning from a foreign trip, with a journalist asking him about possible government intervention in the scandal.

“They are under investigations and it won’t be proper for me to comment on the stage of investigations,” Singh said.

“I would only hope that politics and sports don’t get mixed up,” he added.—Agencies