Baburao Yadav, a right-arm medium fast bowler, is a former Vidarbha and Railways player. On Monday, the 30-year-old was detained for questioning by the Delhi police in the ongoing IPL spot-fixing case and on Tuesday, he was arrested.
As an Under-22 player, Babu, as he is fondly known, made a promising start to his career. In 2003, Playing for Railways against his home team Vidarbha, he picked up 9 wickets. He had made his first class debut in 2001-02 season. In all, he took 18 wickets over six first-class games. Many believed Baburao had the talent to play for the country at the highest level.
Born in a small district of Chandrapur in Maharashtra, Baburao came in contact with top flight cricketers when he went on to train with the likes of S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai.
Like most budding players, he dreamt of playing for the country. But things did not fall in place for him. He later earned a contract with the rebel-Indian Cricket League teams Ahmedabad Rockets and Hyderabad Heroes.
Today, Baburao is the second cricketer from Vidarbha, named in the spot-fixing net after another former Ranji player and his former teammate, Manish Guddewar was arrested by Delhi police from Aurangabad.
Just before being taken to a special cell by Delhi police, he said, "I have nothing to do with spot-fixing. I haven't done anything wrong so I am ready to provide all the information. In fact, I am helping the ICC's ACU on certain issues."
Baburao acknowledges he knows suspended Sreesanth, Chandila but says it has nothing to do with spot-fixing.
"Me and Sreesanth were together in MRF academy while I played local cricket with Manish. I also know Chandila. In fact, I congratulated him when he claimed the wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting in a tie of the T20 league this season. If they have done something wrong that doesn't mean I have also done anything wrong," he reportedly said.
Why he was in Delhi? Baburao said, "I was called by ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit for some information. That's it." He later claimed to be in touch with ICC's regional security manager Dharamveer Singh Yadav, who in turn denied that he has anything to do with this incident.