Pakistan braced for more scandal (13 Sep 1998)

13 September 1998

Pakistan braced for more scandal

By Scyld Berry and Peter Roebuck

WHILE the game of cricket has seen many exciting matches, perhaps nothing that has ever happened on the field of play will prove as interesting and momentous as what is due to happen in the coming weeks at the Lahore High Court. At the least, cricket's reputation as the sport of integrity could bite the Punjabi dust.

The High Court is still located in its old, pink-stoned, Raj building in the centre of Lahore. Last week, in one of its high-ceilinged courtrooms, a judicial inquiry began into the allegations of match-fixing by leading Pakistan cricketers; and if the results confirm the interim report by the Pakistan Cricket Board, which last week implicated Wasim Akram, Salim Malik and his brother-in-law, Ijaz Ahmed, a lot of modern cricket history will have to be officially re-written.

From his elevated seat, Justice Mohammed Malik Qayoom in his black robes is due to question three key witnesses this week: Javed Burki, the former Pakistan captain who headed an earlier inquiry into match-fixing; Intikhab Alam, the former coach; and Arif Abbasi, former chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board, who has asked to give his testimony 'in camera', so revealing is it expected to be.

Already the revelations have been startling enough. When the inquiry began on Tuesday, in front of a packed courtroom, the former fast bowler and MP Sarfraz Nawaz gave what he claimed was a resume of gambling and match-fixing in Pakistan cricket, starting with the Calcutta Test of 1978-79.

Last Tuesday also saw the testimony by Fareshteh Gati, a journalist who has had a prominent role in the long-running saga of cricket corruption in Pakistan. No ordinary cricket journalist, Gati is female and Parsi, one of only a thousand or so members of that community who remain in Pakistan.

Working for The News, a Karachi daily, Gati had interviewed Pakistani players and officials and, so she told the High Court, become convinced of the existence of match-fixing. During the course of this summer she launched into a series of articles containing serious allegations. Akram, kept informed of these developments while captaining Lancashire this summer, is currently suing The News. He has also reacted angrily to the publication of the interim report and insists the accusations are baseless.

The uproar had largely subsided in the two years after Justice Fakruddin Ebrahim had cleared Malik of the allegations of bribery made by the three Australian players, Shane Warne, Tim May and Mark Waugh. But, thanks to Gati's newspaper campaign, the scandal would not go away: hence the Probe Committee, set up by the PCB under Justice Ejaz Yousuf.

The interim report by this Probe Committee was actually issued a fortnight ago, but only came to international attention when another journalist working for The News, Waheed Khan, took a copy of it to Kuala Lumpur, which is hosting the Commonwealth Games. A more serious drawback is that the Committee has yet to cross-examine the three accused men - hence its report was interim - and has no power to take any action beyond making recommendations. It has no legal status, unlike the judicial inquiry in the Lahore High Court, which was ordered by the Pakistan government through its Ministry of Sport.

Like Gati, the Probe Committee have interviewed players and officials and scrutinised a number of matches involving Pakistan in the mid-1990s, which began when Malik was captain.

According to Burki, who conducted a PCB inquiry in 1995, the first allegation of match-fixing by Pakistan cricketers to come to the notice of their authorities was in New Zealand in March 1994. Leading New Zealand 3-0 in the one-day series, with one game tied, Pakistan lost the final game when their batting and bowling disintegrated. Akram ceased to bowl in mid-over, citing an injury. However, Burki reported: "In the absence of concrete proof no action could be taken."

The four-nation Singer World Series was staged in Sri Lanka in September 1994. In a formula which was to be frequently repeated in the coming months, Pakistan asked their opponents - Australia - to bat first, and made a fine start to their own innings in reply, then collapsed suddenly and lost.

Later that year, in December 1994, Pakistan visited South Africa to contest the Mandela Trophy with the hosts and Sri Lanka. In the finals, Malik twice asked South Africa to bat first in what appeared to be perfect batting conditions. Even Wisden described the first decision as "puzzling" and the second as "creating divisions in Pakistan's dressing-room". Pakistan indisputably lost both finals, in one of which Malik was "senselessly" run out.

Rashid Latif, the Pakistan vice-captain, and batsman Basat Ali both walked out of the Zimbabwe leg of the South Africa tour in disgust at the conduct of certain team-mates. Shortly afterwards, Latif offered testimony to the Burki inquiry, which reportedly pointed the finger at Salim Malik. Latif, whose strong moral stance doubtless contributed to his later appointment as Pakistan captain, is understood to have in his possession a file full of evidence about the match-rigging allegations.

If match-fixing was a subject largely confined to Pakistan, it came to international attention when the affair erupted in Australia. It emerged that during their Singer match in Colombo in September 1994, Warne, May and Waugh had been offered bribes to throw the match; the initially reported sums of A$60,000 (approx £23,000) per man were later dismissed as gross underestimates.

On their return to Australia the three players had made sworn affidavits in secret, which the Australian Cricket Board had been unwilling to pass on to their counterparts in Pakistan. So there the matter rested until the story was leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald. A week later The Age of Melbourne named Malik as the man who had offered the bribes.

Had the three Australian players gone to Pakistan to testify to Justice Ebrahim, as requested, the whole affair might have come to a head then. However, both declined the invitation to travel, citing fears about their personal safety.

Scandals have rocked cricket before, the first of them when betting threatened to overwhelm English cricket at the start of the last century. But a sport is not judged by its scandals so much as by the way it deals with them. Cricket's integrity is currently on trial in the Lahore High Court.

The judicial hearing there is expected to take two months to reach its findings, which will be binding upon the PCB to implement. In addition to the testimonies of players and officials, the current Pakistan captain, Aamir Sohail - who has received a life-ban, since rescinded, for speaking out in favour of a clean-up campaign - has suggested that the financial circumstances of all the players should be scrutinised.

This may be fast work by legal standards, yet before then, in October, Australia are to play a three-Test series in Pakistan, a spicy encounter if Akram, Malik and Ahmed should face up to Waugh, the only one of the three Australians scheduled to tour.

In due course, though, if the three players are indeed found guilty then some exemplary punishments would serve to draw a line under the past and encourage the players of the present to re-assert cricket's wavering reputation as the sport of fair play.

The Pakistani team, including Malik and Ahmed, faced tough questioning from reporters on their arrival in Toronto for the annual Sahara Cup on Friday evening, but they refused to be drawn into discussing the affair.

Javed Miandad, the Pakistani coach, insisted that Malik and Ahmed had yet to be found guilty of match-fixing. "Because they are here, it means they are not guilty, he said. "These are rumours going on. I don't think they have been charged."

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