Marks V: Coups, chicanery and a whiff of cordite (19 Feb 95)

Coups, chicanery and a whiff of cordite - Vic Marks

WHEN an adviser to the Prime Minister of Pakistan steps into the bribery debate you have to take notice, even if it is old Sarfraz Nawaz, more familiar to us as that cunning Northamptonshire opening bowler and former buddy of Allan Lamb.

His claims, if substantiated, are as damaging to Pakistan cricket as those directed at Salim Malik. His most startling assertion is that Pakistan threw a one-day international against England at Trent Bridge in 1992. If that is the case, they left nothing to chance; England, having hit a monumental total of 363, won that game by 198 runs. Javed Miandad, Sarfraz`s potential witness, was the captain of the touring party, but missed the match with a stomach upset. He was replaced as captain by Salim Malik.

Sarfraz paints a picture of corruption and intrigue that makes the issue of ball-tampering seem like an inconsequential scratch on the surface of a more sinister malaise. Pakistan cricket comes under the closest scrutiny, and once again their cricket board and their players feel isolated and, no doubt, persecuted. They are already incensed by the allegations from Australia regarding Salim Malik.

Graham Halbish, the chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board, maintains that the relationship between his board and that of Pakistan remains `cordial`, and that next winter`s tour of Australia by Pakistan will go ahead unhindered. Well, he must share the same bizarre sense of humor as Mushtaq Mohammed displayed when chatting to Border at Edgbaston in 1993. He has to be joking.

The allegations, conspicuously not so far denied by the ACB, that appeared last week in the Age, Melbourne`s broadsheet daily paper, could hardly be more explosive. It is claimed that Pakistan`s national captain offered bribes to Australian cricketers to lose a Test match. Specifically, the paper stated that Shane Warne and Tim May have informed the ACB that Salim Malik offered them bribes in the region of pounds 30,000 to last year. Moreover, Mark Waugh has said that he was offered around pounds 50,000 by a bookmaker if he threw away his wicket cheaply in the same match.

Javed Burki, a former Test captain and current member of the Pakistan board, is understandably `very angry` at the way the ACB has handled the affair. `Why is it,` he said, `that after five months we hear about it in the Australian press? Do they think we are all crooks on the Pakistan board?` He will be seeking explanations in London this week.

Salim Malik, who has been leading Pakistan in Zimbabwe, has emphatically denied the accusations. Beyond the diplomatic gobbledegook there is more cordite than cordiality in the relationship between the Pakistan and Australian cricket boards at the moment.

The whole affair is bewildering. In my experience, which includes a tour of Pakistan in 1984 when other `scandals` predominated, bribery has never been an issue. In English domestic cricket the maverick Younis Ahmed was dismissed by Worcestershire for placing a bet on his opponents in 1983. There have been claims of collusion between English county sides - most recently between Essex and Lancashire in 1991 - which were unproven, but worthy of investigation. But I have never come across any suggestion of match-fixing or of money changing hands at international level, though I never played in Sharjah. This seems not to have been the experience of Sarfraz Nawaz.

Clearly the curse of betting has impinged on Pakistani cricket. Leaving aside Sarfraz`s claims, why would the team manager, Intikhab Alam, and the former captain, Imran Khan, check any alleged attempts at a betting coup in Sharjah three years ago if the threat was not real? Before Pakistan met India in the final of the Sharjah Cup, Intikhab and Imran put the players` earnings - about $ 20,000 ( pounds 13,000) - on Pakistan to win, to ensure that there was no skullduggery (Pakistan duly won). Why else would Salim Malik find it necessary to ask his team twice in recent months to swear on the Koran that they had not taken bribes?

Yet to imagine that Salim Malik, a Test cricketer for 13 years, should be so naive as to offer bribes to his opponents beggars belief. Mind you, it seems equally absurd that a Pakistan captain should accuse an umpire of ball-tampering, which is precisely the course of action taken by Salim Malik in Harare.

Conspiracy theories abound in Pakistan cricket, and not all of them are generated by Sarfraz. Salim was appointed captain after a players` revolt terminated Wasim Akram`s brief tenure. In Harare, Salim did not rule out the possibility that the rumors had stemmed from those opposed to his leadership.

But these detractors are unlikely to include Shane Warne or Tim May. Indeed, assuming the reports in the Age are accurate, what incentive is there for Warne and May to fabricate their allegations? None at all. There is no hint of the tawdry chequebook journalism which was employed last year when allegations of match fixing between Essex and Lancashire came to light. Curiouser and curiouser.

Naturally, both Warne and May denied being tempted by the bribes, and at least the match in question remains untarnished. Pakistan won that Test in Karachi by one wicket, thanks to a thrilling last -wicket partnership of 57 between Inzamam and Mushtaq Ahmed. Mark Waugh scored 81 runs in the game and Shane Warne, who took eight wickets, was named man of the match. No suggestion of match-fixing there, since it would be impossible to stage manage such a finish in front of the cameras and the attendant media.

In more humble surroundings, chicanery can be attempted. Indeed last summer the captain of a side that plays in Yorkshire`s Quaid-e-Azam League invented a match, which had, in fact, been called off. He submitted a detailed report outlining how the opposition had been bowled out for 91 and how his team had knocked off the runs for the loss of three wickets. Unfortunately - for him - his ruse was scuppered when members of his team were spotted watching other games in the Bradford area.

We can laugh at such outrageous attempts at match-fixing, but the claims that surfaced last week are serious. Sarfraz`s allegations cannot be ignored, nor can those from Australia. Salim Malik, in particular, has to be exonerated - or exposed - once the official investigations of the International Cricket Conference are complete.

I would not like to bet on their findings, but, by all accounts, someone east of Taunton will have already opened a book on the outcome.

Source :: The Observer