Match-fixing: Tainted Pak trio dropped, Veena hands over proof

Agencies

Taunton, England, 02 September 2010: The three Pakistan players at the centre of the fixing allegations dominating the team’s tour of England will not play in the Twenty20 and One Day International matches. Team manager Yawar Saeed said on Thursday that bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir and Test captain Salman Butt have not been suspended but that they will not play in the remainder of the tour.

 

Saeed said that 13 players will be available for the two Twenty20 matches before three replacements arrive to bolster the squad for the five-match one-day series. "The T20 squad will remain what it is here this morning, i.e., 13 people," Saeed said. "When we play the one-day internationals, we will be asking for replacements to make the squad up to 16."

 

Saeed, who had earlier said the trio would continue playing unless police laid criminal charges against them, did not say who the replacements would be. Asif, Amir and Butt were at the Pakistan High Commission on Thursday for questioning by a Pakistan Cricket Board investigation.

 

 

British newspaper the News of the World alleged on Sunday that Amir and Asif were paid to deliberately bowl no-balls in the opening day of the fourth Test against England at Lord’s last week. Butt and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal were also implicated in the story.

 

Asif, Amir and Butt had their mobile phones confiscated by police, who also searched hotel rooms and questioned players on Saturday as part of an investigation also involving the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.

 

Veena Malik hands over fixing proof to ICC

 

Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif’s ex-girlfriend, actress-model Veena Malik, has handed over "proof" of his alleged links with Indian bookies to an official of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit.

 

Hasan Raza, who is a top official of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit for South Asia, met Malik at her residence here last evening after she alleged that Asif was involved in match-fixing and she had "ample" proof of this. I handed over Asif’s voice recordings with the bookie and some other related information to the ICC official," Malik told a TV news channel.

 

 

"From head to toe, Pakistani players and officials are involved in match-fixing. I had gone with Asif to Bangkok before Pakistan’s tour of Australia. Asif told me he was offered USD 40,000 by an Indian bookie to under-perform in Australia but he demanded USD 200,000. "The Pakistan Cricket Board had evidence of this but no action was taken against him," she said.

 

Asif, his fellow pacer Mohammad Aamir and Test captain Salman Butt are at the center of an alleged ’spot-fixing’ scandal exposed by British tabloid News of the World. The tabloid reported it had paid 150,000 pounds to a fixer for three no-balls bowled by Asif and Aamir during a Test match against England.