Judges blame PCB inaction for Pakistan fixing
A British judge Thursday sentenced former captain Salman Butt to 30 months, fast bowler Mohammad Asif one year and Mohammad Amir to six months for their roles in fixing last year's Test against England.
Their agent Mazhar Majeed received a 32 months long jail term.
Pakistan conducted different inquiries on match fixing between 1994 and 2000 but the menace resurfaced during the tour of England last year.
"When the young cricketers see a lot of money in the game they get distracted and go out of their minds to earn," said Justice retired Malik Mohammad Qayyum, who conducted a comprehensive inquiry between 1998 to 2000.
"It was because of that I recommended the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to check players' assets from time to time, but no action was taken.
"Look at Amir, he is so young and talented, but had there been a proper check on him this case would not have happened."
Retired judge Fakhruddin Ibrahim said fixing was not new in international cricket.
"It's old and endemic disease," Ibrahim told BBC Urdu. "Too much money has made the game a business and too much corruption has come in, and that's not confined to Pakistan only. It's a problem in India as well and other countries."
Ibrahim led the 1995 one-man commission to investigate allegations by Australian trio of Shane Warne, Tim May and Mark Waugh, who blamed then captain Salim Malik for offering a bribe to underperform during their tour of Pakistan.
Ibrahim absolved Malik of all charges due to lack of evidence after the Australian trio refused to give their statements to the inquiry in Pakistan.
"PCB needs to make this current case an example, but the problem is that the appointments in the PCB are also political and merit is not followed so such problems surface," said Ibrahim.
Justice Qayyum recorded the trio's statement in Australia and banned Malik and paceman Ataur Rehman.
It also fined former captains Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar and Inzamamul Haq, and Mushtaq Ahmed and Akram Raza.
Another judge Ijaz Yousuf said he recommended certain players to be banned in 1998.
"We conducted an inquiry and recommended that some players be banned and a new team be made, but that was never implemented," said Yousuf.
COMMENTS (5)
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Eid Mubarak to Salman, Amir and Asif families. Hope they get good care of them.
Dasti would SURE be having the last laugh.
Aah. Justice Qayyum, we recognize your recommendations were not followed by the PCB. Pakistan generally does not do well with 'recommendations' unless they come packaged as binding. Perhaps you ought to take more credit for not eradicating corruption from cricket when you chose not to hand out tougher punishments on those that were clearly involved in match/spot fixing. Your recommendations are only secondary to the fact that you were gutless at the turn of the century and were unable to discharge your duties adequately.
I fully agree with the remarks of the british trial judge about the inaction and non-cooperation of the board to check malpractices and corruption among the players and the board as a whole. Former pakistani judges who headed inquiry teams in the past were also right to regret their recommendations were not implemented to check corruption of the players. Why did this happen like that? Because, corruption, favouritism, provincialism and all sorts of irregularities were rampant in the board. The officials of the board were interested only in their fat salalries plus perks. An independent inquiry should be set up to look into the ills of the board and its recommendations should be implemented in toto. Only then, the pakistani cricket can get its right place in the world of cricket.