4 minutes of readingChennaiUpdated: February 2, 2026 01:52 pm IST
former cricketer sreesanthwho was accused in the 2013 betting and spot-fixing case, recently opened up about the difficult phase and revealed how it was his wife (then girlfriend), Bhuvneshwari Kumari and his family who supported him during the darkest period of his life. He shared that just when he and Bhuvneshwari had decided to get married, he was arrested in the spot-fixing case.
‘My in-laws were with me’
Sreesanth remembers telling Bhuvneshwari’s father that after his arrest, he might never be able to play for India again. “I told his father that I might not play for the country. That’s why I want to express a lot of respect to the entire Shekhawat family. Because at that time they were labeling me as a terrorist and whatever, whatever happened then, but they supported me.”
‘When I heard about his arrest, dharti phat gai’
Bhuvneshwari admitted that when Sreesanth was caught in the center of the controversy, her father was unaware of her plans to get married. “Until that, my father didn’t know that I wanted to marry him. This was before Shree was arrested. Then one day, when I was in HyderabadAll my friends asked me to turn on the TV at 7 in the morning and I saw him arrested in a spot fixing case. I thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to tell my dad?’ “It felt like the ground had opened up and you just wanted to disappear into it.”
Recalling her father’s reaction, she said, “My dad called me and was very upset about the fact that I had gone to Hyderabad. He asked me to come back and I told him, ‘I will not come back until you promise me that you will listen to me and that you will also not cancel this marriage because of what you are seeing on television’. Because even if God comes and tells me that he has done this, I would never believe it.”
Sreesanth admitted that he was suicidal during that time, but it was Bhuvneshwari’s unwavering support that kept him going. “I didn’t really know what was happening, but it meant that I was arrested. At that moment, I realized that there is only one boss, which is God. I was in the most difficult situation. I was literally about to (shows the gesture of cutting his throat). I told myself that it was over. Because they were telling me that I was a terrorist and people around me kept saying that your life was over. I told my brother that in the next 3 or 4 days they could kill me or I could commit suicide or whatever. be.”
‘I was in Tihar for 27 days’
Sreesanth also recalled meeting his future father-in-law for the first time at the court. “At that time, my brother said only one thing – that a girl (Bhuvneshwari) is waiting for you for seven years. She had told me ‘please make sure you don’t do anything stupid’. She told me that she is with me and gave me the confidence to come out of this and fight. I met my father-in-law for the first time in the court. I was close to crying, but his reassuring gesture gave me confidence and told me to stay strong. I was in Tihar for 27 days and Until the time I was in Tihar, she slept on the floor.”
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For the unversed, Sreesanth met Bhuvneshwari for the first time in Jaipur during a cricket match and fell in love. Bhuvneshwari comes from the Diwanpura royal family in Alwar, Rajasthan. The couple married in 2013, the same year Sreesanth was accused in the spot-fixing case.