Malik Out To May (06 Nov 1995)

Electronic Telegraph Monday 6 November Cricket

May`s day against Salim

By Peter Deeley in Adelaide

have paid to see: poetic justice, exquisite retribution - and it cost those present here yesterday a mere 50 pence (children free.)

The timing, too, was perfect. The Australian Cricket Board had just received a message from Sir Clyde Walcott, chairman of the ICC, effectively writing finis to the bribery allegations which have rocked cricket, when two of the protagonists came face to face in the middle.

The board were pressing for a new inquiry: Sir Clyde said no, though agreeing it was "most unfortunate" that the full text of the inquiry by the Pakistan judge - which cleared Salim and cast aspersions against his accusers - should have been published.

In the published text Tim May calls Salim "the rat" in a conversation when Shane Warne relates what he claimed was an attempted bribe to "under-perform" in the Karachi Test a year ago.

Against such a backcloth the tension at the Adelaide Oval was evident for all to sense when Salim walked out in Pakistan`s second innings and May almost immediately took the ball.

The off-spinner had appeared to duck the confrontation during Salim`s first knock. This time May could hardly wait, egged on by a Sunday crowd of 4,000, allowed in for just a dollar.

A gang of boys chanted their own version of the old children`s song Nick Nack Paddy Wack, Give a Dog a Bone, adding the line Send This Pakistani Home.

Then came the coup. May bowled a short, do-nothing ball wide of off stump, Salim charged, and missed

Then another group held up a banner reading "If O J Got Off So Can I" and adorned with Salim`s picture. When he saw it, the player raised both arms in acknowledgement.

May crowded the bat but Salim played him trouble-free for four overs. In the fifth, there was the briefest exchange of words after Salim had pulled the spinner through midwicket for four.

Then came the coup. May bowled a short, do-nothing ball wide of off stump, Salim charged, missed clumsily and as the wicketkeeper smashed the stumps, the batsman fell in a heap. May was beside himself, swamped by his colleagues, as Salim dusted himself down and disappeared, jeered by the crowd. Besides the taste of re- venge, it doubled May`s total of wickets for the season to date.

There was one more oblique comment to come on the Salim affair. Basit Ali, who retired from the game, along with his team-mate, Rashid Latif, in protest against Salim`s captaincy on Pakistan`s tour of Zimbabwe, scored his second century of the drawn game to demonstrate how close his country came to losing a player of enormous potential. He is in prime form as the first Test approaches in Brisbane this week.

Inzamam-ul-Haq was leg-before four short of his hundred but the rest of the batting is looking fragile.

These are not the only burdens the tourists` team manager, Intikhab Alam, is carrying. One moment he is assailed by the Salim case; the next his team are accused of ball-tampering. Yet it seems that on both issues the verdict will be "not proven".

Intikhab says he has had a message from the Australian board saying that the case of alleged ball-tampering in the first tour game in Perth "is over and closed".

The ICC made it clear in a statement issued at the weekend that they do not have the power to intervene in the bribery allegations. But Sir Clyde has asked chief executive David Richards to prepare proposals which could give the council authority in future.

The Australian board are meeting today to consider whether to make one last appeal to the ICC to act. The likelihood is that this is the end of the matter - though Warne may speak through his bowling if Salim is facing him in Brisbane.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph