News
Monday, September 06, 2010
New allegations deepen match-fixing scandalLONDON: The crisis surrounding Pakistani cricket deepened on Saturday when Yasir Hameed reportedly claimed that players on his team had been fixing “almost every match”.
The Sunday edition of the News of the World quoted Hameed as saying Pakistani players were throwing matches.
“They were doing it in almost every match,” Hameed was quoted as saying. “God knows what they were up to. Scotland Yard was after them for ages. It makes me angry because I’m playing my best and they are trying to lose.”
Hameed played in last week’s fourth test against England, in which Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Amir were alleged to have deliberately bowled no-balls in conspiracy with bookmakers.
The News of the World also quoted Hameed as saying he had been offered up to 150,000 pounds to throw a match. If Hameed did not report the approach, he could be charged by the International Cricket Council under its Anti-Corruption Code.
The ICC suspended Asif, Amir and test captain Salman Butt this week while it is interrogating them for various offenses under the sport’s Anti-Corruption Code.
The News of the World said the trio faced a total of 23 charges from the ICC, and alleged that at least 10,000 pounds of marked bank notes it handed to a middleman in exchange for the no-balls has been recovered from Butt’s locker.
The tabloid also claimed that a fourth Pakistani player was being investigated by the ICC, but that he cannot be named for legal reasons, AP reported.
The ICC said it had no comment on the report.
The lawyers representing the three Pakistani players were unaware of any wish by police to speak to a fourth player. Hameed was quoted by a private TV channel denying the claims, which the News of the World says he made to an undercover reporter.
“I have not given any interview,” the channel quoted Hameed as saying. “All the claims of the newspapers are false. I can’t think of giving any statement like this one. Whatever the newspaper has written, it’s their own. I have not alleged any Pakistani player of match fixing.”
Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed said the player denied speaking with the paper, which goes on sale the same day as Pakistan’s first Twenty20 international against England.
“I have just spoken to Yasir and he did deny it,” Saeed said. “I said ‘if you have not said these things, why are they saying this?’ Again he said ‘I have not said it’. That’s all I can say. Let’s wait and see what happens.”
Meeting: Hameed also met Pakistan High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan, PCB Chairman Ejaz Butt and other officials at the High Commission on Sunday to clarify the remarks credited to him, APP reported.
After the meeting, he issued an affidavit which was read out on the steps of the High Commission by PBC legal adviser Tafazzul Khan which stated, “I would like to respond to comments attributed to me by the News of the World today. I wish to stress I have never been approached by the paper and neither did I approach anyone connected with it to disclose any allegations concerning the Pakistan cricket team or any other players. The incident, which was largely inaccurately reported in the News of the World, was when I was having dinner with a friend on the evening of August 30. I was then approached by a man who introduced himself as Abid Khan and offered that he would arrange a sponsorship deal for me with Etihad Airways. I have now seen a photograph of the so-called Abid Khan and have discovered that he is Mazhar Mahmood.”
Meanwhile, the ICC is refusing to discuss the case or detail of the charges, which followed a sting operation detailed in last week’s News of theWorld that alleged that a middleman accepted payment in exchange for the deliberate no-balls in the match at Lord’s - which Pakistan lost by an innings and 225 runs for its worst ever test defeat. The ICC has called it the biggest fixing scandal to hit cricket for a decade.
Also, Shahid Afridi has apologised to cricket fans for the controversy.
Afridi said on Saturday that the players in the squad for the remaining two Twenty20 and five one-day matches against England were upset by the allegations.
“On behalf of these boys - I know they’re not in this series – I want to say sorry to all cricket lovers and all cricketing nations,” Afridi said.
“It’s very bad news,” Afridi said ahead of Sunday’s first Twenty20 in Cardiff. “It’s a big challenge for me as a captain but we’re all ready. The coach and I are not talking about the issue – we are here to play cricket.”
Butt, Asif and Amir were released without criminal charge after being questioned by London police on Friday but could be banned from cricket for life if found guilty. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk