Dean: On The Pakistan Bribery Crisis (Oct 95)

Geoffrey Dean traces the background to the crisis currently plaguing Pakistan

SALIM MALIK was first informed of the bribery allegations made against him by Tim May and Shane Warne by the Telegraph on the eve of the third Test against Zimbabwe in Harare last February. The Australians alleged that Malik offered them money to bowl badly in the first Test in Karachi in September 1994. Why they waited five months to make the accusation is still a mystery.

May and Warne say that Malik offered them the bribe over the phone, and it is not an impossible theory that Malik was impersonated. When asked if he believed the alleged bribery might have emanated from opponents of his captaincy in Pakistan, given that he acquired it in controversial circumstances from Wasim Akram after a player revolt, Malik replied: "That is indeed something I had thought about."

Just how suspicious Malik was of threats to undermine his captaincy at that time can be gauged by his admission that, after the highly surprising defeat against Zimbabwe in the first Test, he asked all of his side to swear on the Koran that they had not taken bribes in return for deliberately bad performances.

Malik, then, would claim that the bribery alleged against him may have been part of a wider plot to discredit him as captain. If there was one, it might have succeeded, since Malik was sacked after the Zimbabwe tour though not, so the Pakistan Board stated, because of the bribery allegations but rather owing to his performance as captain. Manager Intikhab Alam was also dismissed, though he has been reinstated for the current Australian tour.

Rumours that the team had split into rival factions were rife by the closing stages of the South African leg of the tour prior to the Zimbabwe series.

Malik had been appointed captain at the start of 1994 in somewhat acrimonious circumstances

The background to Malik`s accession to the captaincy is worth recording here. He had been appointed at the start of 1994 in somewhat acrimonious circumstances after the selection of the party to tour New Zealand had led to a major row.

Initial protests against the omission of Javed Miandad soon turned to objections to the "domineering" captaincy of Wasim. After a mutiny led by Waqar Younis, his vice-captain, both were replaced, with Malik being given the job and Asif Mujtaba the role of deputy.

Although the tour to New Zealand was a harmonious one, the visit to South Africa and Zimbabwe was anything but. Malik and Wasim did not get on and the new vice-captain, Rashid Latif, had a public row with Malik over his decision to field first in both matches of the Mandela Cup finals.

Latif asked to leave the tour at this point and was alleged by Sarfraz Nawaz to have claimed that nine team-mates "threw" the one-off Test in Johannesburg where Pakistan were roundly beaten. A fortnight later, after Zimbabwe had astonishingly beaten the Pakistanis in the first Test, Bombay bookmakers created all sorts of speculation when they refused to honour 40-1 bets against a Zimbabwe victory. Clearly, they believed the Test had been thrown.

Whether either Test was thrown or not, this was the sort of controversy that has consistently accompanied Pakistani teams all over the world for the past few years.

The issue of ball-tampering is the most obvious example, but they have also made themselves highly unpopular with umpires.

Recent clashes with umpires include: Aqib Javed`s antics with Roy Palmer in the Old Trafford Test of 1992; the barrage of verbal insults hurled at Zimbabwean official Quentin Goosen in the Bulawayo Test last February when he was called a cheat; and, most memorably, Malik`s own accusation in the following Test at Harare that another Zimbabwean umpire, Ian Robinson, had actually himself tampered with the ball while inspecting it.

Ball-tampering was first brought to light by an opposition team in November 1990 when New Zealand made complaints. As recently as last February in the Bulawayo Test, the Pakistanis were hauled over by the umpires for ball-tampering after the Zimbabwe captain, Andy Flower, had complained to the match referee.

The problem of the captaincy is undermining Pakistani cricket even further. The ongoing power struggle within the team seems to continue, as does Pakistan`s unofficial war with the rest of the cricketing world. Their board`s reference this week to their Australian counterparts as "crooked" can only encourage thoughts of pariahdom.

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