Sports

Another match-fixing scandal

ICC launches investigation into Friday's one-day international between England and Pakistan.

Agencies September 18, 2010

DUBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has launched an investigation into Friday's one-day international between England and Pakistan, the sport's governing body said on Saturday.

The decision was taken after the ICC received information from a British tabloid on the scoring pattern in the match, ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat said in a statement.

"We therefore feel it is incumbent upon us to launch a full enquiry into this particular game although it is worth pointing out at this stage that we are not stating as fact that anything untoward has occurred," Lorgat said.

"Only in the fullness of the investigation can that be established."

Pakistan won the game at the Oval in London by 23 runs.

Incredibly, this comes after three Pakistani stars had already been sent home in disgrace amid claims of match-fixing.

The new investigation will centre on suspicious scoring patterns in Pakistan's innings and on two suspected overs during yesterday's match at The Oval.

Illegal bookies in India and Dubai apparently knew in advance what would happen. The Sun's undercover team was able to pass details to ICC inspectors before the match began.

Cricket chiefs then watched as Pakistan's score mirrored the target that the bookies had been told in advance by a fixer.

It is not thought that the overall result was fixed, only scoring rates in parts of Pakistan's innings.

PCB Chief Ijaz Butt while talking to CNN IBN said that he was not contacted by the ICC with regards to any form of investigations and said this issue was the "imagination" of the newspaper and there is no truth to it.

Series to continue?

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said it believed the remaining two contests in the five-match one-day series would take place as scheduled.

However the board said in a later statement it would hold a meeting to discuss the allegations as a matter of urgency.

"The ECB is seeking clarification and details from ICC, and the ECB board will meet later today to discuss the matter," a statement said.

COMMENTS (31)

Iceman | 14 years ago | Reply @Salman...Why Dont You See That After Getting A Second Chance...The Batsman Out Of Utter Eagerness To get Out..Plays Such A Stupid Shot.And Also If You Can Listen To Wat Ramiz Raja Has To Say When He Got Out... Try And Not Think Of This As A Conspiracy, Look Out For The Signs And You'll See It...

sumair javed | 14 years ago | Reply Your are not guildity untill proven guility, they people who are putting their comments here and acusing the pakistani with them even proven guility should be shamed. No wounder our great nation is going into drain because of such people who will rather insulat our own country men rather that defend tham. I do agree that they need to be punished but only if they are proven gulity but untill then we need to wait for the ourcome of ICC.

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sumair javed | 14 years ago | Reply Our Cricket board and Goverments is useless, buch of headless chickens running around for nothing. they should start wearing bangles as this will suit their personality. What kind of a goverment and board is this, who can not even come with a strong statement againts the british tabilots who repuation is nothing but just a thug. They should send them a legal notice for insulting a pakistani team and pakistani people, it;s the reputaion of pakistani inline we are taking about no stone need to be unturn to defend out nation pride. I feel very disapointment with PCB and for me Ijaz butt is nothing but a clown which need to be replaced with some with more maturity and sence than mr ijaz butt childish behaviour.

salman | 14 years ago | Reply i deep heatedly condemn Pakistani team for such illegal tasks...

Abdul Rahman Khan | 14 years ago | Reply This chain of events of match and sport fixisng in cricket will continue to bring bad name not only to the pakistani cricket but also to Pakistan as a country unless and until the PCB stops shielding the corrupt players and other elements in the Cricket Board. The PCB should fully support and cooperate with the ICC and other probing agencies to weed out corrupt and greedy players who have brought disrepute to pakistan. The guilty players and others involved in this despicable and ignominious acts should be given exemplary punishment.

Zuhair Younus | 14 years ago | Reply Well...I would rather say that Pakistan should not play with England until this rubbish and idiotic statements are not finished. They should boycott with ECB on this matter because all allegations are taken place in UK. Cheers Pakistan !

Mussarat Hussain | 14 years ago | Reply I dont't believe in flogging "dead horse". Not only Pakistan number of other coutries are equally involved in match-fixing. It's a conspiracy hatched against Pakistan in which media played a big role in maligning Pakistan at all level. Western media never highlighted skeltons of nuns retrieved from basements of the Churches in London and other European nations that prompted to generate "protestants". Very sorry to say about he double-standard. I reiterate, being a journalist I dont belive in flogging dead horse. Mussarat Washington DC

Asfandyar | 14 years ago | Reply Guys I fed up with these spot fixing allegations enough is enough really suck me up if I were politician i sweaR i w'd have sue that all news papers well, the bloke say why british media always target pak becoz they are muslims thats why they plann these conspiracies to malign pak so crap rediculous trying to get money byy cheap ways shame on britians... In concise i w'd say these schmuck british media got mad!!!

Shahid | 14 years ago | Reply It's Bcci, ECB and ICC headed by BCCI

Bunty | 14 years ago | Reply Total rubbish....this report makes me doubt the credibility of British media more than I have before.

Adeel Ahmed | 14 years ago | Reply British tabloids and newspapers can climb the tallest mountain and jump from it for all I care. They aint swinging this in their teams favour... only Gul does that. :)

Owais | 14 years ago | Reply So everyone is calling this controversy against Pakistan, because they have won a match. hahaha. State of Denial is a disease. I mean come on "have a heart to gulp what others say'' why don't British media point towards Australians who are their biggest rivals ! why is it always Pakistan? or are we going to declare it international conspiracy linking it with global terrorism , funded by CIA, RAW, MI6 etc to malign Pakistan. whats so special about Pakistan that everyone is out there to 'GET US' , or the west percieves that if these bunch of cricketeres are not maligned now, they would rule the cricketing fraternity in the coming years. I don't believe anything british media says until proven, hence Pakistan if have any self respect left should quit this tour and take on the british tabloid heads on. But with ijaz butt leading us , we wont see any cancellation of tour and this mocking of our team , our players and our nation going on and on and on.

akbar | 14 years ago | Reply ICC has miserably failed in clearing the game from corruption. The cricket governing body ! please don,t tell me that Gul has fixed the match to take 6 wickets in an inning against ENG. ICC is playing in the hands of a tabloid. Why ICC don,t say that the match was fixed by ENG to lose it, on a wicket,where the avg score in an ODI is over 300 & they couldn,t achieve a target of 242. Can someone explain ?

Mariam Hussain | 14 years ago | Reply This is psychotic. Any sane person who has even a bit of knowledge about cricket knows that an over's result is not only dependent on the batsman, the bowler bowling that over also has as much to do with it. Or are we trying to suggest that the English bowlers are so incompetent and useless that Pakistan could actually play their entire innings in a manner that was pre-decided by them? I guess its not just PCB that is downright dumb, incompetent and incapable of any semblance of sanity, in this case ICC has taken the cake by actually acting on these allegations and giving out irresponsible and downright stupid statements. God help cricket if its governing body is so whimsical and incompetent.

Salman Zaheer | 14 years ago | Reply @Iceman: If the English player fumbles with the ball which saves Omar Akmal from getting run out then the ICC should question the English team players and not Pakistani players. However, the media is being bias and selective because if they label the whole match as fixed then it will put a question mark back on English players who threw away a match which they almost won. Had there been a different end to the last match, allegations would have been quite different than the one which are published. My suggestion to this whole allegation would be: ICC should sack its anti-curruption unit as it failed to catch a single corruption case till date. Pakistan should resturcture the board and sack the chairman. UK print media should stop selling crap to its readers That will do lot of good to the cricket in the end.

Saif | 14 years ago | Reply Yes, screw them. After every match that Pakistan wins, a series of conspiracies involving Indians and Brits come up - especially in UK. This is enough!

bunny | 14 years ago | Reply I think then england team in also involved in it because they were bowling short and allowing Pakistan to score on same pattern. That funny if some one say Pakistan is involved...If Pakistnai team is good enough to control thier innings then why not they always score more than 300 in every inning....its funnny.....very funny....awesome involve English team now in scandal

Farhan | 14 years ago | Reply PCB should be tough with ICC on this issue. What the hell ICC is doing? ICC officials shut your mouth, investigate first, and then come forward with some evidence. To hell with the current childish policies of ICC and PCB. If there were suspicious patterns in third one-day over which ICC want to investigate, then why the hell Lorgat announced on media about investigations before getting any evidence. ICC officials and PCB should colloborate and investigate the match fixing. But not at the cost of Pakistan and its entire cricket loving population.

Zahid | 14 years ago | Reply This is just a media trial of Pakistani team which is being conducted by British media. when Pakistan won oval test, they thought that Pakistan might win the next test and will equal the test series. Therefore, they raised the issue of spot fixing against 3 Pakistani star players. actually British were afraid of Pakistan pace attack. After the statement of English Umpire, it seams that British are just trying to pressurize the Pakistani players and trying to create easy opportunities for their team to win all three series.It seams that after completion of Pakistan Tour of England, all issues will be settled by British Media and ICC by just excusing from players and PCB. Pakistan Media should also support our team and players and should arrange special features and guest forums on this issue. This is the only way to encourage our players to play positive and not to take any pressure of these gossips.

morbid isolation | 14 years ago | Reply I'm not saying that Pakistani players aren't guilty of spot fixing which is practiced by players in all international teams but this series (Test and ODI) has been used to conspire against just one team. Even if I believe that the first allegations against Salman,Amir and Asif are true, these fresh ones are absolutely ridiculous. Why would a team already under the microscopic eye of the ICC,Scotland Yard,the media and the world still partake in such nefarious activities, it's is just ludicrous and if anything the England team should go through a similar check because this virus of immorality plagues the cricket world in general, not the Pakistani team in particular.

maitre | 14 years ago | Reply It's typically of the Britishers and the colonizers. For many decades after partition / independance movements, they had a superior psychological profile on their old colonies sunjects and many a time the newly independant countries' team could not finish at the winning podium. Now the times have changed but the mentality hasn't. Every time, they are defeated they mount a psychological pressure on the underdogs through match fixing scandals. After Oval test win, the bookies, I believe under the British cover, were after the Pakistani players (given that Salman Butt spoke of English side Ashes series in Australia and Andy Flower checked him for his statement). Since the trio acted / or fell pray to these bookies' temptation, that gave the Britishers a chance to have a physical and psychological go at the Pakistanis and depicted them as a corrupt team highlighting English team's impeccable sport character which was later drummed up by many teams of the world (like the Indians though corrupt to the deepest core in betting). They took every single opportunity to malign Pakistan's cricket because our players provided them with a genuine pretext to have a go at them. These are all stratagems considered legitimate similarly 'every thing is fair in love and war.' So don't expect any fair judgment from them. The Pakistan cricket team have made a mistake of defeating England before a big oval crowd on Friday. How would they digest it? They had hampered our victory through spot fixing allegations. They have done it again this time but luckily not in England. The Pakistanis should square the series and beat them again in the next match to prove that the trio's exit haven't matter much.

Iceman | 14 years ago | Reply Well,If You Guys Would Just Look At The Whole Match Again And See The Way The Wickets Are Thrown Away...Its Not That Hard To see The Fixing. Classic Example:Umar Akmal Was Gonna Get Run out On One Ball....English Fieldier Fumbles And Makes A Mistake.SO HE'S SAFE... Next Over ..Umar Akmal batting..Plays A VEry Stupid Shot.gets Caught On The Boundary.. And You Guys Say Its Not Fixed?

nabeel | 14 years ago | Reply thx win the match

Jahanzeb Afzal | 14 years ago | Reply If this is true then I must praise the PK team for the professionalism they put into the fixing. They are the best and can decide the fate of game. Well done Cricket Pakistan.

SK | 14 years ago | Reply Now without a doubt this is all complete rubbish to malign Pakistan before start of worldcup. Yes I beieve that even if trapped suspended trio was involved in spot/match fixing but this latest news is nothing but definitely malicious compaign to malign Pakistan. Why in the world no one is investigating the way England lost last 4-5 wickets so quickly in third one-day, why no one is investigating the way Umpires are not giving out against England, why no one is investigating why Umpires don't even refer to third upmire in case of appeals from Pakistan? yes punish people where its their fault but you can't go on and oppose Pakistani cricket for someone else's gains.

Palwasha | 14 years ago | Reply I'd second ali !

Faizan | 14 years ago | Reply yup this is ridiculous....kisi haal mai bhi khush nahi hain yeh britishers

ahmad | 14 years ago | Reply it seems that the monster which is surrounding the pakistan cricket is growing bigger and bigger...we are in the state of total unconsicenous . First the key important players scandal and now the left over players are being attacked. The anti-pakistan lobbies are now trying to destroy the image of pakistan in cricket ..first they stopped teams for playing in Pakistan and now when we go to play in neutral venue we see there dark and evil shadows .There are immaculate evidences that whos behind this all.

umair | 14 years ago | Reply sharam magar tumhe aati nahi

Ali | 14 years ago | Reply Seriously this is getting ridiculous and i wonder a stronger Cricket board and government would take a better action. I mean the british are saying whatever they can, whenever pakistani team wins a match they come up with a story. screw them. i would rather trust our own team than british media. This is only happening because of a dummy board we have.

Anthony Mitchell | 14 years ago | Reply “Horrified ICC chiefs launched their investigation before the Pakistan innings had even finished,” the Sun reported.

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