‘My name wasn’t even in the FIR’: How former India cricketer’s 22-year ordeal ended in acquittal after controversial UK tour, arrest and Tihar jail

For most cricketers, the innings that define them are played in the middle. Jacob Martin’s longest battle took place in the courtroom.The former India batsman has been acquitted in a 22-year-old criminal trial linked to the controversial cricket tour of the UK in 2004. The Patiala House court in Delhi acquitted the Vadodara resident of all charges: forgery, cheating, criminal conspiracy and offenses under the Passport Act.The case was traced back to a 2004 FIR citing Sections 420, 468, 471 and 120B of the IPC along with Section 12 of the Passport Act. Prosecutors blamed a forged British immigration stamp, questionable travel arrangements and financial transactions involving Martin. None of it lasted.Nor did the court find credible evidence that Martin owned or controlled Ajwa Sports Club, the club at the center of the allegations. Witness after witness failed to support the prosecution’s case and the charges collapsed.Martin is now 54 years old. The verdict closes a chapter that spanned more than two decades and changed his career and his life beyond it.

From Ranji runs to an Indian cap

Before that, Martin had built a name for himself as one of the most reliable middle-order batsmen in domestic cricket. Born in Baroda, he thrived on focus and sheer willingness to bat. His breakthrough came in the 1998-99 Ranji Trophy when he crossed 1000 runs in a season, becoming only the sixth batsman in the competition’s history to do so.

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This run brought him national attention and eventually an Indian challenge.His first-class career surpasses the international one. Martin played 138 first-class matches, scoring over 9,000 runs, hitting 23 wickets and averaging over 46. He also led Baroda to the 2000–01 Ranji Trophy, still the team’s last title, and later returned to Baroda cricket as a coach.However, it never really caught on internationally. Ten ODIs, a debut against the West Indies in Toronto in 1999 and a stretch between 1999 and 2001 in which he managed 158 runs at 22:57.

The tour that changed everything

The number that will overshadow Martin’s career is not 10 caps or 9,000 first-class runs. He is 22 years old, the case has been hanging over him for years.According to him, it started with a team associated with him that traveled to the UK in 2004. Most of the players returned home. One didn’t, he overstayed his six month visa. That player, Martin says, arranged for a fake immigration stamp through a contact in Britain. He was eventually deported and picked up at Indira Gandhi International Airport for questioning.Martin insists that his name was not in the original FIR at all, that he was later dragged into the investigation, partly because of who he was.“In 2004, my team went to play in the UK. The team that went to play in England in 2004, they all came back except for one boy who stayed back in the UK. Because the visa was valid for 6 months, he could have stayed for 6 months, but he overstayed by more than 6 months, so what happened was that he got through a fake stamp when he made a fake stamp there. He was deported from the UK, so he was caught at IGI Airport and was then interrogated,” said Martin.The police told a different story. They alleged that Martin and an associate arranged the boy’s trip under the guise of a cricket tour, with money, and that Ajwa Sports Club, described as a fake outfit, was used in the arrangements. There was even a hint of human trafficking or illegal immigration.None of this held up in court.

Arrest, Tihar and career quietly dismantled

Martin was arrested in Delhi and spent time in Tihar jail while the case went through the system.It was still not resolved in 2016 when the Baroda Cricket Association appointed him as coach of the Ranji Trophy, a decision that drew criticism given that the case was still ongoing.Off the field, the damage was more direct. Martin says he lost his job with the railways over the case and was never able to get a foothold at the BCCI. Two decades of uncertainty have taken their toll.“My name was not even in the FIR, but when the investigation was going on, I was involved in this case because the name was big and I was an international cricketer because of that. And after the case ended, this… now, after 22 years… during these 22 years, I also didn’t get any response from BCCI; I lost my job in the railways. So I had it, but now I have a lot of stress because I came out of it; it will be a big deal for my life and very… after 22 years it is this… challenge I received, a very big turning point in my life,” he added.The court case wasn’t the only thing that tested him. In December 2018, Martin was seriously injured in a road accident in Vadodara with damaged lungs and liver. He was put on a ventilator, spent nearly a month in intensive care, and was briefly in critical condition.Former teammates and administrators rallied to help cover his treatment.More than two decades after that tour to England, Martin’s judicial ordeal ended. It won’t undo the years he lost. But it gives him something he hasn’t had in a long time: a life after cricket that isn’t defined by the case that still hangs over him.