Cricket Special Report: Will the threat of bookies loom over UAE and World Cup 2011 (Part 2)
(Continuation of part 1’s discussion about the aftermath of the controversial tour of England and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-c89347 Afridi’s second reason to step back from the captaincy slot)
It was only later that the ODI and T20 captain Afridi revealed his second reason for stepping down from the test captaincy slot. On Pakistani national television and newspapers, he informed the team management and board that he wasn’t ok with the fact that
the players involved in the controversy were having late night visits from their agents. He found the meet-ups between players and agents late night to be something unusual and abnormal that during an ongoing tour sports agents are meeting their clients, which
never in his 14 years of international career was either seen or allowed.
However, the bookie Mazhar Majeed was released as no concrete evidence was found by the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Scotland-c756 Yard, as to him paying money to the Pakistani cricketers. They only had a footage which meant nothing. The pictures taken were useless, as they couldn’t speak
out the reality while they were taken and showed no signs of match-fixing.
ICC chief executive Haroon Lograt spoke regarding http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mazhar-c75448 Majeed’s case said,
“These are leads that we have to follow through and be quite confident before we make allegations, and it was the subject of an ongoing investigation," also adding to his statement, "We were not satisfied of the extent of his (Mazhar Majeed) activities
and we needed to be quite confident before we levelled any accusations.”
However, soon after the controversial Pakistani cricket team’s tour of England, the Asian Unpredictable’s were scheduled to play a home series in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 after the South African home series to be played at the neutral venue of UAE. The black cap’s management
and cricket board showed raising concerns regarding the match-fixing fiasco pulled off by the Asian team, as they believed that the turn-over wouldn’t be according to the desired expectations of the New Zealand’s cricketing authorities.
They thought that the cricket lovers wouldn’t show up to see their national side in action with the Pakistani controversial side based on the recent allegations as the spectators must have lost all the trust and faith in the matches at hand. However, the
English ODI series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 had the same raising concerns regarding the viewers turn over, and the English authorities were proven wrong as the ODI series which was played soon after the controversial test encounter had an unexpectedly huge audience
and the game was played in good cricketing spirit.
Other international series such as the recent Australia-http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 and South Africa-Zimbabwe encounters were also concerned about the turn-over and approaches from book-makers, due to the mere fact that almost every full member ICC team’s key players has been
reported to be approached by some bookie or agent in the recent past.
Major or key players from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747, and many more cricket nations have reported bookies to approach them. According to the ICC’s ACSU protocol on such matters, the cricketer approached by a bookie or unknown personnel is not expected
but is supposed to inform the concerned authorities.
However, almost all international cricketers have appealed the ICC to take firm action to end the disgraceful and image crushing illegal fixing activities. To the extend, most of the senior cricketers appealed to make examples of the Pakistani trio, so that
in future no one dears to commit the same unlawful act of getting involved with bookies or taking money for bowling a number of no-balls in a match.
The upcoming UAE tour between the South African and Pakistani national side is considered to be among the several attempts for some sort of match practice before the biggest cricketing event, the 2011 edition of the ICC World Cup. The South African skipper
Graeme Smith has shown optimism regarding the entire controversies that struck the cricketing world.
(To be continued...Part 3)
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