Searching for Sanjeev

A few weeks ago I spent hours - blimey, they were countless - attempting to track down an infamous charcter from match-fixing's shady past. The result was a feature in this month's The Cricketer magazine. Here's a taster...

At first glance the cul-de-sac just off the Finchley Road in north London is calm, cosseted by the bosom of suburbia. The bins have been neatly arranged for the morning’s collection. Mock Tudor homes are blemished by satellite dishes. Ready-to-roar 4x4s shimmer out front. The odd net curtain twitches. At No 4, the gate has been left open. In haste or a sign that the owner will return?

“Yes, they’re still there,” says the woman at No 6 with a hint of American drawl.

“The Chawlas?”

“Yes...haven’t seen them for a few weeks, though. Perhaps they’re on holiday.”

Before she opened the door a perturbed, wide-eye had appeared behind the glass. Her voice wavered in the way that they do when strangers call. She is right to be nervous, although not for the right reasons. She is living next door to one of India’s most wanted. A man on an Interpol hunted list. A man Delhi police believe was the brains behind the match-fixing scandal that tore cricket asunder. His name is Sanjeev Chawla. Hansie Cronje’s fixer.