Pakistan cricket in crisis after match-fixing allegations

Pakistan cricket in crisis over match-fixing

LONDON — The International Cricket Council has started to put pressure on Pakistan to address the crisis engulfing the country’s cricket team following allegations that fixing by players is endemic in its matches.

While former Pakistan great Javed Miandad is suggesting that the players under suspicion should withdraw from the country’s current tour of England, ICC president Sharad Pawar said Monday that the Pakistan Cricket Board needs to take action.

“The primary responsibility lies with the Pakistan Cricket Board,” Pawar said. “We are in touch with their officials and will shortly decide on the course of action.

“The charges are no doubt very serious … The police are investigating the case in England and we have to wait and see what they come up with. It will not be proper for me to say more at the moment.”

British police are investigating British newspaper allegations that two of its players deliberately bowled no-balls in its humiliating fourth-test defeat to England at Lord’s. Pakistan lost the series 3-1 after going down by an innings and 225 runs on Sunday.

There is no suggestion that the players’ actions affected the scale of Pakistan’s defeat — its heaviest in 58 years of test cricket — any player found guilty of colluding with bookmakers to manipulate the result could be banned for life.

Team manager Yawar Saeed said that Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and captain Salman Butt had their mobile phones confiscated by police, who also searched hotel rooms and questioned players late Saturday as part of an investigation also involving the ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.

The allegations first came to light when Sunday’s edition of the News of the World published a story and video from an undercover report that alleged that Asif and Amir were paid to deliberately bowl no-balls during Thursday’s opening day of the fourth test.

Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ejaz Butt is involved in discussions over the team’s next step, but Saeed has said he expects it to fulfill its remaining fixtures of two Twenty20 matches and five one-day internationals.

With the first Twenty20 match scheduled for Sunday, thousands of tickets have been sold and the remainder were still on sale Monday through English county club websites.

Miandad, Pakistan’s greatest batsman, said the tour should continue but every player should be stood down and team management replaced.

“It would be tough for them to handle the pressure,” Miandad said.

Now director general of the PCB, Miandad said he would be willing to coach the new team.

The News of the World tabloid said it secretly filmed its undercover reporters, posing as front men for a Far East gambling cartel, in discussion with a man it identifies as London-based businessman Mazhar Majeed, who appears to accept $232,000 in order to make sure no-balls are bowled at certain times.

The newspaper said it passed all its evidence to the police.

Majeed was subsequently arrested by police late Saturday, but was bailed without charge on Sunday. The bail obliges him to appear before police at a future date.

The PCB has requested to access to the investigation by Scotland Yard through its High Commission in London.

The PCB said in a statement it will make no further official comment on the case while police investigations continue.

“As the match is now subject to a police investigation, neither the ICC, ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board), PCB nor the ground authority, the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), will make any further comment until the completion of investigation.”

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zaradari has asked the PCB for a preliminary report into the allegations, while Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani said the scandal “has hurt us.”

“Our heads are bowed in shame and I have asked the sports minister to inquire about it,” Gillani said.

Former ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed said he thinks a ban from cricket for the Pakistan team may be in order.

Speed, an Australian who headed the ICC from 2001-2008, says he is concerned by what “looks a fairly compelling case” of rigged betting.

“I think that’s (suspension) an option. It’s serious,” Speed told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Pakistan parliamentarian Iqbal Mohammad Ali, who also heads the lower house’s standing committee on sports, called for the players in question to be fired from the team ahead of the upcoming limited-overs games against England.

“Whosoever is involved should be banned for life,” he said. “All those who are suspected should be sent back home.”

Associated Press Writers C. Rajshekhar Rao in New Delhi, Richard Sydenham in London, Dennis Passa in Brisbane, Australia, and Rizwan Ali in Islamabad contributed to this report.