Illegal betting casts dark cloud over cricket (15 Feb 1995)

16 Feb 1996

Illegal betting casts dark cloud over cricket

Peter Deeley

Peter Deeley considers the background to the recent accusations of bribery and match-rigging involving the Pakistan team

MATCH-RIGGING allegations in international cricket widened yesterday with claims by two more Australian players of approaches from bookmakers offering large bribes for services rendered.

Mark Waugh said he had been promised $100,000 if he threw away his wicket in the first Test against Pakistan in Karachi last October. Dean Jones revealed he had been asked to provide information on players' form during the tour of Sri Lanka in 1993 in return for a payment of $50,000.

This follows the publication of articles in the Australian press alleging that spinners Shane Warne and Tim May were each offered $70,000 to bowl poorly in the first Pakistan Test in October, which the home side won by one wicket. Both rejected the alleged offer.

Statements to the Australian Cricket Board are believed to have given the name of the Pakistan captain, Salim Malik. He has categorically denied making any of the alleged approaches to Warne and May.

These statements are part of a dossier sent by the ACB to the International Cricket Council in London, who are conducting an official investigation. The ICC are also aware of Allan Border's statement that, when leading Australia in England two years ago, he was offered 500,000 by a former Pakistan player, Mushtaq Mohammad, to throw the Edgbaston Test, won by Australia by eight wickets. Mushtaq, now living in this country, says it was merely a joke remark.

'We have become used to such malicious rumours'

The Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan set up their own inquiry into allegations of match-fixing last October, soon after Australia's arrival.

Arif Abbasi, the BCCP secretary, told me then that he had no doubt the suggestions were false, but that the time had come "to clear the air for once and for all". Malik declared: "We have become used to such malicious rumours and baseless allegations."

That investigation proved inconclusive. Evidence to support the case could only come from the bookmakers and as all betting is against Islamic law none was prepared to put his head above the parapet.

Sarfraz Nawaz, the former Pakistan Test bowler and no admirer of the present Board administration, has led the accusers. As sports adviser to the government he called for a further probe, this time by the federal anti-corruption bureau.

In the dressing room and among the Board there is an equally deep antipathy towards Sarfraz, suspecting that he may be using the affair to whip up public animosity. In Pakistan, politics and cricket are inextricably mixed. The country's president is patron of the Board with the right to appoint and dismiss members.

Conspiracy to tarnish the name of Pakistan cricket

The feeling in Pakistan is that the allegations are part of a loose "conspiracy" to tarnish the name of Pakistan cricket, coming on top of allegations of ball-tampering.

Why, it is being asked, has it taken four months for the Australian allegations to surface? And if the Australian Board have already discussed the matter with the ICC, why have Pakistan not been asked for their version?

Undeniably, the dark shadow of betting stalks the game across the sub-continent. In Pakistan last year, team manager Intikhab Alam and former captain Imran Khan admitted forestalling alleged attempts at a betting coup during a one-day series in Sharjah three years earlier by four unnamed team players.

Pakistan were meeting India in the final and to ensure that no-one profited from the result, Intikhab and Imran put the players' earnings - about $20,000 - on Pakistan to win, which they did.

In India, too, gambling on the game is outlawed and at one stage, in order to stamp out the business, several known bookmakers were held in jail. That merely shifted the centre of their operations to prison cells.

Questions were being asked after a one-day series in Sri Lanka last year.

While it is difficult to imagine how a five-day Test could be rigged, the one-day game has fuelled such rumours since its birth. A Melbourne newspaper paid about $A1 million libel damages for falsely stating that Clive Lloyd's team in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in the 1970s had been involved in fixing.

Recently, the allegations have centred on Pakistan. Questions were being asked after a one-day series in Sri Lanka last year, followed closely by rumours circulating at the time of Australia's visit under their new captain, Mark Taylor.

Before the final of the triangular series in Lahore - convincingly won by Australia by 64 runs - Intikhab admitted that each player had given an oath that he had not taken part in any betting.

That did not halt the tongue-wagging and when Zimbabwe beat Pakistan recently, the side were again called upon to give their word, this time on the Koran, that nothing underhand had taken place. The word from Bombay was that some illegal bookies there had refused to pay out on 40-1 bets placed on the Zimbabwe team, the rank outsiders and winners by an innings, who until then had never won a Test.

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