Pakistani players match-fixing issue

Ijaz Butt dropped a bombshell on Friday by announcing that two Pakistani cricketers are involved in match-fixing.

But just hours after making that revelation at a press conference in Lahore, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman backtracked and clarified that the two players mentioned were not from the current lot.

“Match-fixing could be going on but it is hard to prove,” Butt said. “We have proof against two players but I cannot reveal the names of players involved in match-fixing,” he had added.

Butt also commented that the PCB has received concrete proof against the two cricketers over their involvement in match-fixing from the International Cricket Council (ICC).

However, the ICC distanced itself from the controversy with its spokesman making it clear that the ICC has not made any correspondence on match-fixing with the PCB.

“The ICC is unaware of the existence of any such reports.”

Butt’s comments stirred a hornet’s nest and there were multiple queries related to the match-fixing issue.

He was asked, point blank, that whether one of those cricketers was Kamran Akmal, the wicketkeeper-batsman. The PCB chief refrained from making any comments, saying that a PCB inquiry was under progress and he can’t say anything about it till the time he receives a report from the probe panel.

Cricinfo adds: Butt talked about two players against whom the ICC had provided the PCB with definitive proof that they had been involved in match-fixing, without specifying whether they were from the current squad or not. In spite of persistent queries he refused to provide further details.

One of the journalists, thinking the players were active ones, asked whether the board would take action against them. “You think we haven’t taken action against them?” Butt responded, the implication that the players were current ones, seemingly lost on him. “When we took action, the public accepted that and from my friends sitting around here, no one commented on it.”

Later, however, Butt categorically denied that the players and cases he was referring to were current ones. He said by bringing up the cases, 10-12 years old, he was merely trying to clarify how the ICC procedure on incidents of match-fixing works between the body and boards.

“I was telling them of the procedure the ICC has evolved about how such cases work,” Butt said. “I was telling them that proving match-fixing charges and allegations can be very difficult. One of our friends in Islamabad made allegations against Younis Khan without any proof and look how that has destroyed his career almost.

“If there is any match-fixing allegation you can ask the ICC about them and we did verbally. They communicated the two names to us and showed us incontrovertible proof of it. But I can confirm that the players are not from the current squad. The cases I am referring to are old ones and they didn’t happen under our administration.”

There remains no clarity on whether the present administration asked the ICC for proof — and thus what sparked the need for such a query — or whether this is an old report sent to a previous PCB administration.

The last nine months in Pakistan have witnessed persistent rumours of match-fixing. They first surfaced during Pakistan’s tour of Sri Lanka last year, where the team — or members of it — were allegedly seen in the company of suspected bookies who were in the same hotel, albeit inadvertently. Pakistan’s spectacular batting collapses, resulting in two Test losses from positions in which it looked difficult to lose, fuelled the speculation.

Then, after returning from a semifinal loss in the Champions Trophy in South Africa, Jamshed Dasti, a member of parliament and head of a committee on sports, levelled allegations against Younis Khan and his team, summoning them to a meeting in which Younis handed in his resignation.