Trio plead not guilty at tribunal hearing

Salman Butt says he did not know how Majeed could have predicted when the no-ball would be bowled.

The independent tribunal hearing the case of spot-fixing allegations against Pakistani cricketers resumed in Doha on Friday.

Thursday's hearing saw Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir giving statements to the tribunal and sitting through more than seven hours of evidence.

According to a report by the BBC, Butt told the tribunal that he did not know how Mazhar Majeed could have predicted when the no-balls would be bowled while Amir, towing the same line, told them that he did not know why Majeed said what he said to the News of the World.

However, Asif told them that his no ball was a mistake as he was just trying to bowl a faster delivery on the instructions of the then-captain Butt.

Pakistan's one-day captain Shahid Afridi is expected to give his testimony to the tribunal via video link today from Karachi. The News of the World journalist who broke the story, Mazher Mahmood, will also talk to the tribunal. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is relying heavily on the newspaper’s evidence.

ICC’s Code of Conduct Commissioner Michael Beloff will chair the tribunal with the two other Code of Conduct Commissioners, Justice Albie Sachs from South Africa and Sharad Rao from Kenya, completing the tribunal.

The three players have pleaded not guilty and remain hopeful of getting their names cleared during the six-day hearing.