Pakistan Cricket Team roped into Match Fixing controversy
Pakistan Cricket Team is once again dragged into the match-fixing controversy, after it was suspected that occurrences of ongoing Test match against England at Lord’s were all set up.
A 35-year-old London-based businessman, Mazhar Majeed has been accused of taking £150,000 from an undercover and surreptitious journalist reciprocally for asking Pakistan seamers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif to intentionally bowl three no-balls on Thursday and Friday in the Test Match against England in Lords.
Mazhar was however arrested by police yesterday on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers. Pakistan players were also questioned by Police in connection with the allegations yesterday, which was later confirmed by Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed.
Saeed said, “They have spoken to me and I have tried to answer their queries. We will cooperate all the way with them in these investigations”. Though he denied that police had found money stashed in players’ hotel rooms. “That is not correct,” he said.
Mohammad Asif said, “The management has told us something happened, but not what. The management will tell us more later”.
A Video film of the meeting between Majeed and the News of the World reporter was released yesterday, which clearly showed Majeed accepting the money and insisting that the three no-balls “have been organised” with the Pakistan team.
Majeed was seen telling. “This is exactly what’s going to happen, you’re going to see these three things happen. I’m telling you, if you play this right you’re going to make a lot of money, believe me.”
Exactly same happened in the Test when Asif and Amir bowled three No Balls by overstepping the crease by a significant margin. The three no balls bowled were, Amir’s first ball of the third over and Asif’s sixth ball of the 10th over on Thursday, and the third ball of Amir’s third over on Friday.
Majeed also said, “I’ve been doing it [match-fixing] with them for about two-and-a-half years and we’ve made masses of money. I manage 10 of the players, I do all their affairs like contracts, sponsorship, marketing, everything really. The players would never tell anybody else. They were the ones who actually approached me about this. This is the beauty of it. I was friends with them for four, five years and then they said this happens. These poor boys need to [do this]. They’re paid peanuts.”
He has also claimed that Pakistan’s one-day games with England have also been set up. And, it is proved the claims will put a huge darkness over the perceived unity of Pakistan Cricket Team and the World Cricket.
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Shame for the Game. But what’s new with Pakistani Cricket?
They should be banned from playing cricket
I’m sure no action will be taken against them.Even if PCB bans them, these players can be back after appealing.All these can happen in Pakistan only.
” their names should be expunged from all records. suppose if a batsman A is caught B bowled C and both B and C are guilty of fixing then the record should read batsman A caught …. bowled ….. .” the great sunny gavaskar said in an interview. thats the way to go.