Saleem Malik’s Confessions Return to Haunt Him and the News of the World a Decade Later – Part 2
Continued from http://www.senore.com/Saleem-Maliks-Confessions-Return-to-Haunt-Him-and-the-News-of-the-World-a-Decade-Later-Part-1-a25913
Now came the important bit: the cost of fixing a match. Little realising that our entire conversation was being recorded; he said it would cost £500,000 to fix any given match.
This, it turned out, would include £100,000 going to him, plus up to £50,000 per player - say £200,000 in total to cover a sufficient number of batsmen and bowlers to ensure the 'right' result - and another £50,000 to one of his tame ICC officials.
Then there would be flights, phone calls, hotels etc. "But you will make double the money, otherwise it's not worth it for you," said Malik quickly.
This is how part of the conversation went:
Malik: I think that with X (he talks about an ICC official who we cannot name
for legal reasons) the lowest he will accept is £50,000 Reporter: Per match?
Malik: Per match because he'll be doing all the work from the inside. He will be talking to the players; he can do it any time.
Reporter: So it's £50,000 for him and up to £200,000 for the players? Malik: And you have to look after us four or five people that will be working for you. I think that in total the whole job will cost you £500,000.
As the conversation continued, he 'firmed up' the price for his own services. "If you involve me I'll get your job done for £100,000.” he said. "I'll tell you which players and what they'll do, bowlers and batsmen.
There are some other people we have to pay. Some umpires are involved as well, "When there are Asian matches there'll be one Asian and one English. They have to have one from the local country. You nobble umpires when you don't have the team sorted."
We met Malik again for dinner the following evening. When the waiters were out of earshot he admitted the controversial Bangladesh v Pakistan match during last year's World Cup was fixed.
"Yes something happened there," he said with a wink, during that game, Malik was out lbw for just five runs.
The odds against a Bangladesh win were 33-1. Bangladesh scored 223-9, while Pakistan was all out for 161.
"http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 also came to Pakistan and hammered us," he said. "The matches were fixed, which is why Pakistan lost. During that series I reckon around £10 million was bet." 'In a year you make three or four million'.
Then he spoke of another bizarre match involving http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 - each squad had bribed players, he said."Both sides were wondering what the h**l was happening," he added.
"We were trying to get them to score runs against us and they wouldn't. We were tying to get ourselves out and they wouldn't get us out. "I was the captain in that game. What a lot of aggro that was! It was like we had to kick the ball just to get their runs up."
(He means that when a batsman hit a ball near him in the field, he would 'accidentally' kick it further on rather than throw it back.)
Malik suggested that our reporters plough money into the forthcoming Asia Cup in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747.
"There are loads of series coming up," he said. "If you get one match a month, and you make £500,000 per series then you don't need to worry about every match. In a year, if you make three or four million pounds, you're OK."
End of Part Two: Part three talks about the involvement of some of the leading stars in the game, including Shane Warne.
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