Tribunal judgement highlights weak defence

Late on Wednesday, the ICC finally put online the full judgment of its independent tribunal in the spot-fixing hearing along with the verdict on Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir. The 102-page edited and encrypted report of the independent tribunal is not available to readers in England and Wales to prevent its details from prejudicing the trial of the three cricketers by the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which pressed criminal charges against them.

Butt, Asif and Amir were banned on Saturday for ten, seven and five years respectively and so far only Amir has since stated his clear intention to appeal. The charges brought against the players by the ICC related to the fourth Test at Lord's against England last summer, for bowling pre-planned deliberate no-balls at the behest of player-agent Mazhar Majeed. The plan was brought to light through an undercover investigation by the News of the World.

The judgment is unusual from most other legalese-heavy documents as it charts an entertainingly written and fascinating course through the entire case. One of the central questions of the case, it acknowledges early on, was whether the no-balls were "fluke or fix?" On basis of probability alone and Majeed's video-taped conversation, confirmed by the judgement to have been recorded before the event and not after, it concludes that the no-balls were in fact, a fix.

Then, the interactions between Majeed and Mazher Mahmood, the tabloid's investigative reporter responsible for the story, are carefully and extensively detailed. At one stage it is revealed that Mahmood was tipped off about the whole thing by "a well-placed person in Pakistan cricket."

The relationship between Majeed and the players is also reconstructed, in vivid narrative; he was, officially, as acknowledged by the players, their 'agent'. But the judgement focuses, in painstaking detail, on the number of text messages and phone calls exchanged between and among the three; the evidence placed on record, in fact, seems to be extensive, based mostly on the NOTW videos and tapes, but significantly, also Met Police transcripts and phone records.

When discussing the actual event of the three no-balls reference is made to ESPNcricinfo's BBB commentary, as well as Sky TV's commentary, expressing surprise at the margin of Amir's no-balls in particular.

From the actual hearing, held in Doha from January 6-11, a clear picture emerges of the differences in the defence of the players and indeed the weakness of their cases, confirming some of the reportage of the time. At one point, when the report begins to detail the defence, it says, "The position of the players against whom charges have been brought as to how it was that MM [Majeed] was able to predict the three no balls and the timing of their execution changed over time….By the end of the hearing before us, however, Mr Butt's position was that MM must have had inside information but that it had not come from him. Mr Amir did not proffer any explanation other than fortuity. Mr Asif's position was that MM must have had inside information, but suggested that Mr Butt was its source.

"It therefore followed that the three players' defences before us were different. Mr Butt accepted there was a fix, but denied that he was a part of it. Mr Asif asserted that Mr Butt was a part of a conspiracy and that he himself was, as we shall explain, the unwitting instrument of Mr Butt. Mr Amir denied his involvement in any fix, the existence of which he did not formally accept." Later it confirms the report that Asif's defence of the no-ball was that Butt had told him to "run faster", which caused him to over-step.

Much information comes to light on a game in St Lucia as well, during the World T20 last May, for which Butt and Kamran Akmal were sent notices by the ACSU. ESPNcricinfo had reported the story at the time, but more details of the interaction between Butt and Majeed are available here.

The one positive - and it is truly a relative one - is that the money found in the rooms of Butt and Amir could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt to have been for the fix. "While Mr Majeed enriched himself to the tune of GBP 150,000, there is no appropriately proven evidence before us that the three received any direct monetary reward at all for their wrongdoing…..We are not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the monies, found in their hotel rooms, were payoffs for the fix."

The judgement also details the range of witnesses presented by all sides, whose testimonies were either in person, written or over the telephone. Among the list of the ICC's 15 witnesses, were Pakistan coach Waqar Younis and captain Shahid Afridi, whose testimonies were taken over the phone, and intriguingly, Northamptonshire coach and former England fast bowler, David Capel, who gave a written statement. Among the players, there was no witness for Amir, while only coach Mohammed Haroon gave written testimony for Asif. On Butt's side however, were written testimonies by former Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson, former Pakistan bowler Abdul Qadir, Pakistan's strength and conditioning coach David Dwyer and Azhar Hussain Zaidi, a prominent Pakistani club cricket organiser and sports store owner.

"It therefore followed that the three players' defences before us were different. Mr Butt accepted there was a fix, but denied that he was a part of it. Mr Asif asserted that Mr Butt was a part of a conspiracy and that he himself was, as we shall explain, the unwitting instrument of Mr Butt. Mr Amir denied his involvement in any fix, the existence of which he did not formally accept."

As the judgment heads towards the verdict and sanctions, the spirit of one tribunal member, Albie Sachs, emerges clearly. Sachs was an eminent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa, and whose slant through the hearing has been a more forgiving one. It is noted early that the failure to acknowledge guilt stands against the players throughout, as ESPNcricinfo reported on Wednesday, but the reasons against life bans are also eloquently laid out.

It believed the Oval and Lord's charges were part of a one-off. The judgment says, "Fortunately for them an [un]promising career in spot-fixing was nipped in the bud by the News of the World investigation... it was a trial run. The purpose was not to influence any outcome or to serve as the basis for betting." That no money was proved to have been paid to them for the fix also goes against the life ban. Finally, the tribunal argues that spot-fixing is less serious than match-fixing, so it would have been harder to give out longer bans - even though the judgment insists the penalties given out are harsh. Five year sanctions, it says, are far from being "a mere slap on the wrist."

The themes of rehabilitation and redemption, so clear in the judgments on Butt and Asif and important to a man of Sachs' stature and background, are particularly lucid and reasoned. "Repentant sinners have in other areas, including the sporting, made the best teachers," it says, after recommending that the pair be involved in education programmes to warn young players of the ills of corruption.

The judgments concludes with a reference to the great Chicago Black Sox baseball fixing scandal, echoing the famous words of a distraught young fan to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, one of the players involved: 'Say it ain't so, Joe.' The tribunal, the judgement says, "too wish in this case that it was not so."