The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has adopted an indifferent posture after match-fixing allegations were again levelled against the national cricket team, this time over its semi-final match with rivals India at the 2011 One-Day International World Cup.
Earlier, British journalist Ed Hawkins tried to whip up controversy ahead of the release of his book, casting doubts over the match played in Mohali.
He claimed he received a Twitter message from an Indian bookmaker who accurately predicted the Pakistani side’s demise in the match. While he did not make any concrete allegation, he cited a statistician as saying the odds of a bookmaker predicting the outcome of a match in detail would be 405 to one.
However, with a keenly-anticipated bilateral series against India planned for December, the PCB is keeping mum over the issue. When PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf was contacted, he refrained from giving any remarks, saying that his predecessor Ijaz Butt would be in a better position to discuss the issue.
“It’s better to talk to Ijaz Butt [the then chairman of PCB], as I don’t have the insight to give any comments,” Ashraf told The Express Tribune.
Meanwhile, another senior official dismissed the report, saying that importance should not be given to such people as the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport’s world governing body, had already given a clean bill to the game.
“It isn’t important what people like Hawkins say for publicity as the ICC has cleared the match,” said the official. “We’ll look at the context of the British journalist to decide whether to sue him, while another option is for us to stop the launch of his book.”
The ICC has already dismissed another report in the British newspaper Sunday Times, which suggested the semi-final may have been fixed. “The story carried by the newspaper, which claims that ICC is investigating the 2011 World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan, is baseless and misleading,” ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat had said. “The ICC has no reason or evidence to require an investigation into this match.”
Basit calls Hawkins a publicity seeker
Former Pakistani cricketer Basit Ali slammed the claims, stating that Hawkins was ‘trying to seek publicity’. “He is a publicity seeker who is only aiming to sell his book without thinking about denting the reputation of others,” Ali said.
“No one would give any attention to his book — that’s why he’s doing this drama.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 11th, 2012.
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