Nupur Mehta claims that she was seeing Tillakaratne Dilshan around the 2009 T20 World Cup in England.
Nupur said “I was seeing Dilshan and went to the casino with him but that does not suggest I am involved with match-fixing in cricket. That is my personal life and my relationship cannot be made the basis of such a big allegation. I am a single, attractive girl and have the liberty to move around in any part of the world and interact with whoever I want to.”
“I was living at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington around the time but I wasn’t sharing a room with anyone. I stayed at the hotel for a few days and paid my own bill at the rate of £500 per day. I have bills to prove my claim,” Nupur claimed.
“All I knew is that several cricketers were living in the same hotel but I did not know who they were. There was no way for me to know even if Sachin Tendulkar was living in the room next to mine,” she said.
“I have no fear because I am clean. That is the reason I am freely talking to the media. If I was involved, I would have fled the country just like the two bookies whose names have cropped up. Still, it’s amazing how a journalist has cooked up the story.”
“My brother lives in the UK and I often visit the country to meet him. I have worked as a model in several European countries and I often visit London for shopping,” she said.
“They (The Sunday Times) should back their claim with substantial proof. If they claim I was interacting with cricketers to fix matches, why don’t they at least produce my pictures with cricketers as evidence? Why did they use a blurred film still of mine in their report? The picture they used is freely available on Google,” Nupur said.
“The truth is that England, the country that invented cricket, is ashamed of the fact that it could not perform well in the World Cup. The country lost miserably and now they are cooking up these match-fixing theories,” she claimed.
