PAKISTANI batsman Aamir Sohail has set off a storm in the cricket cup by alleging that two Indian players "approached him" during the 1994 Singer Cup in Sri Lanka to "fix" a one-day international match. "Not one, two," Sohail told Outlook as the stigma of soccer-style off-field tactics returned to haunt subcontinental cricket.
Sohail is reluctant to name the Indian players. "I don't want to involve players of any team other than those of my own" in the scandal, he says. That day, he reportedly told the Indians to spare him. Says Sohail, "I told them they had come to the wrong guy. I told them not to bother with me again."
The 31-year-old lefthander's stunning accusation is dismissed outright by Ajit Wadekar, Indian manager on that tour. "It's news to me that (Sohail) was approached by some Indian cricketers to throw the match. Because we never got to play each other due to bad weather." Sohail's inconsistency is glaring: India played three matches in that series—two against Sri Lanka, one against Australia—and never took on Pakistan. But the southpaw has all guns blazing. He had spoken of only one player when he first made the charge. Over the weekend, he told Outlook there were, indeed, two.
Charges of betting and bribery have dogged cricket in these parts, but most of them have been flung at the Pakistanis. This is the first time the Indians have been drawn into it, publicly at least, and the one pointing a finger this time round is a Pakistani. But says former Indian Test spinner Maninder Singh: "I think Sohail's just trying to increase his importance."
To be sure, Sohail's indictment of Indian cricket comes amid a welter of more damaging charges involving his own teammates, Wasim Akram downwards. And after a tiff with Majid Khan, chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), during a recent domestic game at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore.
Sohail was suspended after a faceoff with Majid, who asked Sohail's family members to vacate the Board's hospitality boxes during a semi-final of the limited-overs Wills Cup tournament in which Sohail was playing. Sohail entered into an argument with Majid, earning himself a disciplinary hearing and a 40-day ban.
Protesting against his suspension, Sohail says the PCB had done nothing so far to stamp out more serious things like "throwing" matches: "Why is it that the authorities are after me and why have they failed to investigate properly the repeated rumours and allegations of betting and match-throwing?" He reserves his ire in particular for Akram.
Why, he wonders, is nobody questioning the Pakistani captain's friendly relations with bookie Raja Zafar-ul-Haq alias 'Jojo'. "Why don't the authorities look into this matter?" he asks bluntly. "After Salim Malik was exonerated by an inquiry panel probing the allegation of Australians Shane Warne, Mark Waugh and Tim May that they were approached to throw a match, then PCB chief Javed Burki is reported to have told a few people, 'Maine Lamboo ko bachaa liya hai (I've saved the tall guy)'. People want to know who this 'lamboo' is. Burki must explain what he meant by his comment," demands Sohail. Sohail's allegations against Indian players may be intended for shock-value. But he has opened a can of deadly worms back home that will take some time to close.
He claims wicketkepeer Rashid Latif earned 'punitive' action for refusing to "throw" the third and final one-day game at Trentbridge last year to allow England a clean sweep in the one-day series as per a bet with the bookies. He says Latif was told by someone outside the team to get out because a bet had been placed that Pakistan would lose the series 3-0. Rashid, adds Soh-ail, refused to comply and hit an unbeaten 51 to take his team to victory. But he was dropped from the team after that.
Sohail says during the '94 Austral-Asia Cup, someone from "outside the game" visited his room. "I was offered £pounds (roughly Rs 120,000) to run out my opening partner Saeed Anwar and get out before making 10 runs." Latif too was approached, he says, after which the two informed manager Intikhab Alam. "An oath was taken on the holy Quran and Pakistan won the game the next day," says Sohail.
A similar situation, he says, arose during Pakistan's '94 tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe. As rumours that players were involved with betting syndicates in fixing matches chased them, Sohail says he, fast bowler Aqib Javed and Latif raised the issue at the team meeting. "I suggested that everyone take an oath on the Holy Quran that they had not taken money. I said I would start off the proceedings by taking the oath. But the meeting was adjourned abruptly. If they were not guilty, why did they not take the oath?" asks Sohail.
When Pakistan lost the Mandela Trophy to the Springboks, Latif and batsman Basit Ali announced their retirement from cricket. "Betting is becoming too big an issue. It has to be sorted out," says Sohail.
Few are surprised that the charges are coming in such a flurry. And coming from Sohail. Despite six years of international cricket, 34 Tests (2,103 runs, 17 wickets) and 122 one-dayers (3,919 runs, 70 wickets), the furious-looking Lahorite has been a bit of a loner in the side.
Which is perhaps why he's upset with a conversation he had with former Pakistani captain Zaheer Abbas. Says Sohail: "While I was out of the team, Zaheer called me over to his house. His exact words to me were, 'Tum unke sath kyon nahin mil jatey (why don't you join them?)'. He said that would solve the problems I was facing. But I will never stoop so low."
For his part, Akram dismisses Sohail's charges as a case of sour grapes. And he has backers. Pakistan International Airlines cricket team trainer Sajid Khan says no cricketer who got involved in fixing matches would have attained the position or respect which Akram has.
As for Sohail's accusation that Indian players approached him, Akram says he has only read it in the newspapers. "We don't know anything. Maybe people are jealous that Pakistan has won five of the six tournaments it has played recently."
Former PCB chief executive Arif Abbasi says Sohail's allegations are not provable, and Majid Khan told Outlook that they are just not true, although the inquiry into them is still to begin: "Aamir is just maligning the country. If he has any documents he should produce them."
But Sohail has an ally in that eternal gad-fly, Sarfraz Nawaz. Soon after Sohail's outcry, the former fast bowler, now a fulltime politician, wrote to President Farooq Leg-hari, also a patron of the PCB, demanding a government investigation into cricketers' collusion with bookmakers.
In a 1995 letter to the ad-hoc committee of the then Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan, Sarfraz had narrated incidents involving former captain Salim Malik and his brother-in-law Ijaz Ahmed (Senior) in match-fixing. Significantly, Ijaz's suspected links had been speculated upon by Javed Burki, then chairman of the ad-hoc committee, in an earlier report.
During the 1994 tour of New Zealand, Burki wrote: "It came to our notice that the last one-day international was fixed. This was slightly apparent in that Wasim Akram did not bowl. We also heard that Ijaz had links with Zafar 'Jojo' and one Hanif Cadbury.
However, in the absence of concrete proof, no action could be taken." Although cricket betting is legal in Australia and England (there are betting tents on grounds), the phenomenon assumes a different dimension in Islamic Pakistan. The past two decades have seen a host of incidents involving its cricketers, starting with the final Test against India in Calcutta in '79-80, that beg answers.
The hosts had won the series but large sums were being placed against India winning the toss and obtaining a first innings lead. Asif Iqbal not only lost the toss but declared 59 runs behind India's target with six wickets still standing. Such were the losses suffered by bookmakers that all bets were cancelled.
In his missive to Leghari last week, Sarfraz wrote that betting and match-fixing by Pakistanis began in Sharjah and was institu-tionalised by the likes of Cricket Benefit Fund Series (CBFS) chief Abdul Rehman Bukhatir and his Man Friday, former Pakistani skipper Asif Iqbal.
SARFRAZ says the Sharjah gambling mafia led by Bukhatir managed to fix the '87 World Cup semi-final to make Pakistan lose to Australia: "When I informed the government through a press conference, Bukhatir sued me for Rs 10 million. This is still pending before a Lahore civil judge as Bukhatir and his accomplices are afraid of the evidence I have against them."
But not all Pakistan captains have shied off from dealing with the issue square-on. Sarfraz says former captain Imran Khan confessed in Rajat Sharma's Aap ki Adalat that he had placed a bet worth $20,000 (approximately Rs 7 lakh) on a match Pakistan was playing under his captaincy.
Also under a shadow is Pakistan's match against Australia in the '94 Singer Cup, the same series in which Sohail says he was approached by two Indian players. Chasing 179 for a win the Pakistanis were sailing along merrily at 152 for three but eventually ended up losing the match.
The Daily Telegraph, London, quoted Kishore Bhimani, sports editor, The States -man, Calcutta, as saying: "After I saw Pakistan coasting to victory, I approached my bookmaker to place an additional bet on Pakistan. To my astonishment, the bookmaker said: 'Kishore I'm willing to cancel your initial bet...Pakistan is going to lose'."
The Javed Burki adhoc committee report states that between the end of the tour and the beginning of the '94 Singer Cup, Salim Malik flew back to Lahore with PCB permission, "met with Chaudhury Khalid Gitty of Lahore and settled the issue". Many believe Dubai-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was somewhere in the picture.
With such worms crumbling all over, it's little wonder that Sohail's statements have received such attention. Former BCCP chief Air Marshal Nur Khan believes it's sheer incompetence on the part of the cricket management not to have brought the issues of bribery, betting and gambling to an end. The 30-day suspension has already cost Sohail his place in the Pakistani squad for the Sharjah Cup; the suspension has been extended by 10 days to accommodate the inquiry set by Majid Khan.
Sohail and his family members say they have received anonymous calls in Lahore, warning of dire consequences. Sohail believes he may have played his last match for Pakistan. Majid Khan is unclear what disciplinary action awaits him but it's anticipated that his fate may not be dissimilar to that of Qasim Omar, who was banned for seven years after levelling unfounded charges against Imran.
Like Omar, Sarfraz, Basit Ali and Latif before him, Sohail insists that no matter what the results, he has just one goal: to reveal the whole truth about betting, bribery and match-fixing. But he might soon learn that hard evidence counts for more than merely his word against lots of others.
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