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The epicentre of a slew of
allegations and insinuations has to be the Johannesburg sweet shop
owner, Hamid 'Banjo' Cassim. Here's what he has to say about the
famous 'gift' of a BMW to Kapil Dev. He denies having any under
hand dealings in or around the game.
"The
whole thing was in the open,” says Banjo who had become friendly
with the Indian touring Indian cricketers on that first
'Friendship Tour' of South African 1992-'93. "I telephoned
BMW and they said I should go through a dealer. I knew that the
dealer at Auto City was an Indian so I spoke to Joe Joosub there.
It was the first time I had spoken to him.” The dealer then
offered the car and Kapil received it at a function at the Kyalami
race Track. The function apparently was attended by 300 people,
"It was all out in the open, there was nothing
underhand," he stresses.
Banjo, while speaking of himself describes himself
as a family man, and says that all this scum about his dealings in
match fixing has deeply hurt him. "The last time I gambled on
anything was in 1976 and when my elder brother found out that I
had put my money on a horse he gave me a hiding. I haven't gambled
since that day."
Banjo
was greatly surprised at Judge King's order asking him to testify.
In fact, a columnist of 'Business day' described Hamid Cassim as a
"bumbling, three stringed instrument of petty villainy".
Reactions are mixed. Yet, what Cassim has to say about his
ordeal at the court, was, "I became blank".
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