Australia and ICC accused by Pakistan in betting row (10 December 1998)

10 December 1998

Australia and ICC accused by Pakistan in betting row

By Mihir Bose

PAKISTAN cricket officials have accused the Australian board and the International Cricket Council of applying double standards over the cover-up of the fines imposed on Shane Warne and Mark Waugh because of their involvement with an Indian bookmaker.

The issue will now dominate the ICC board meeting in Christchurch on Jan 10 where the Pakistanis intend to question David Richards, the chief executive of the ICC, over his decision not to tell them about the affair at a time when Pakistan were trying to determine whether any of their players had been guilty of throwing matches.

Yesterday Richards, a former chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board who has known of the cover-up for four years, robustly defended his decision not to tell the Pakistanis.

The cover-up could impact on the judicial inquiry into bribery and match fixing being conducted by Justice Malik Mohammed Qayyum. This is the third such inquiry held by the Pakistanis and before the Australian cover-up was revealed it seemed near to a conclusion.

But yesterday the judge said that having placed great reliance on the evidence under oath of Waugh, he would now be inclined to doubt his credibility. "If he did not have a legal obligation he had a moral duty to bring it to our notice and it casts doubt on his credibility," said Qayyum.

Pakistan anger centres on the meeting of Feb 20, 1995, when Javid Burki, then head of the ad-hoc committee running Pakistan cricket came to London and met with Richards and lawyers for the ICC. By then, allegations made by Warne and Waugh against Salim Malik had already become public. At the London meeting Burki was given sworn statements taken from the Australians describing how Salim had allegedly tried to bribe them.

Eight days later Richards and Clyde Walcott, then chairman of the ICC, met the ACB at the Sheraton Hotel in Sydney and were told of how Warne and Waugh had been involved with an Indian bookmaker and fined.

Richards and Walcott discussed whether they could tell the Pakistanis but Richards explained: "We felt the way the ICC was constituted we couldn't inform Pakistan. We were of the view that the onus was on the ACB to disseminate the information. We were informed after the event. You've got to look at the ICC in the historical context. It is changing but it has been a fundamental plank of the ICC that it is the sovereign right of member countries to deal with matters of player discipline and all manner of selection and all that sort of thing."

Pakistani officials are privately seething at what they consider a cosy Australian stitch-up. One high-ranking Pakistani official, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "Suppose a former chief executive of Pakistan cricket now running world cricket had been told of such a thing by the Pakistan Cricket Board and kept silent, what would the world have said?"

When Waugh and Mark Taylor (representing Warne) gave evidence to the Qayyum commission, special arrangements were made to accommodate their wishes. They did not want to go a court so a court was assembled at the home of Pakistan's Chief Justice, Ali Subtain Fazli.

Fazli said: "They swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yet when asked why they were making these allegation against Salim Malik they said it was because they were shocked and as Australians they played for the love of their country, not money. Was that the whole truth?"

Salim last night said: "I have maintained all along that I was framed by the Australians."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)