Warne bribery case is dead: Majid (6 Sep 1997)

06 September 1997

Warne bribery case is dead: Majid

Sports Reporter

LAHORE, Sept 5: Former Test captain and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief executive Majid Khan has said that after completion of an inquiry by the former Supreme Court judge and Attorney-Generalof Pakistan, Mr Justice Fakhar-ud-DinG. Ibrahim, the issue of allegations by the AustralianTest cricketers Shane Warne, Tim May and Mark Waugh was "as good as dead as for as the board" was concerned.

The famous Test leg-spinner Shane Warne has repeated his allegations of offering "bribe" by Salim Malik in his recently published book "My Own Story"!

During an exclusive interview with this reporter in his office at the PCB headquarters in the Qadhafi Stadium on Friday afternoon, Majid Khan expressed his surprise over the fact that the Australian trio of Test cricketers had not accepted the judge's offer of recording their statements in their own country or in a third country. He said that to re-open the issue after the judge had given his "verdict" was incomprehensible and against all norms of justice!

It may be recalled that the three Australian cricketers had levelled allegations that the senior Pakistani cricketer Salim Malik "had offered them lucrative amount in foreign exchange in reward to intentionally perform badly during the Test at Karachi". Strangely enough, Pakistan had won that Test due to heroic batting by Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmad in the last stages of the game.

On Friday evening after the strenuous work-outs in the national cricket camp when Salim Malik was contacted by this reporter to know his reaction about the book, he simply said: "No comments"!

The experts of the game and impartial observers in the Punjab metropolis have opined that "to kick up the controversy again by devoting a chapter on his earlier allegations against Salim Malik was a cheap publicity gimmick by the Australian Test cricketer Shane Warne to sell his book"! Meanwhile, the national coach Haroon Rashid, talking to this reporter after camp-training, confirmed that off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq was scheduled to reach Lahore within a couple of days while ace-batsman Ejaz Ahmad Senior and paceman Muhammad Akram would fly direct from Britain to join the Pakistan team for Sahara Cup Cricket series against India in Toronto.

Source:: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)