Cynical silence deafening from Pakistan

 

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By Geoff Lemon, 3 Sep 2010 Geoff Lemon is a Roar Expert

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 Cricket, match fixing cricket, Pakistan cricket

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In the days of chaos following a British tabloid’s expose of cricket corruption, the most notable aspect was precisely the thing that wasn’t there. That is, any sort of denial or affirmation from either Pakistan’s team management or the three players involved.

The evidence, it seemed, had them caught so red-handed they might just have come out of finger-painting class. Yet from the morning after the scandal broke, no kind of transparency was forthcoming.

At that morning’s press conference, Butt could be most generously described as looking a little the worse for wear. When questioned, he ducked and weaved as though facing Lillee and Thomson on a bouncy WACA deck, letting most be caught by team manager Yawar Saeed.

Those he did answer were exercises in obfuscation.

When asked directly if the allegations were true, Butt would only reply, “These are just allegations and anybody can stand out and say anything, it doesn’t mean they are true. They include quite a few people and they are still ongoing. We’ll see what happens.”

Saeed took a similar tack with his responses: “No allegations are true till they proved either way. So at this point of time they are just allegations.”

At the post-match press conference that afternoon, Butt was asked directly if Pakistan players had thrown the Sydney Test match against Australia this year. He again threw to Saeed, who fended off with “Anything to do with any allegations or anything have been read or heard, I am here to answer that and I would request you to refer to the current, present situation.”

As I wrote here a few days ago, none of this bears any resemblance to the conduct of the innocent.

Surely players who had been somehow set up would be shouting their protests from the rooftops? Chris Cairns certainly did when Lalit Modi claimed he had been involved in match-fixing.

He even took the IPL impresario to court, not something one does lightly when the opponent is a billionaire.

Yet the approach of the implicated players and their management has been one of fudging, dodging, and staring at their shoelaces as though hoping the problem will just go away. As time goes on, it begins to make their tactics sadly and abundantly clear.

While the initial evidence from the tabloid sting was extremely compelling, there is a difference between what is obvious evidence and what is legally submissible. Rick Parry, head of a UK sports betting integrity panel organised by the Gambling Commission, has already been reported saying the evidence against match-fixer Mazhar Majeed won’t stack up in court.

While Majeed’s correct prediction of three no-balls clearly shows the deliveries were pre-arranged, the fact is that the undercover tabloid reporters didn’t actually bet on the information given, therefore no crime was committed by Majeed’s provision of it.

This, it seems, is what Salman Butt and company are putting their stake on.

The hope that the investigation will flounder without legally supportable evidence having being found against them. At that point, presumably, they could claim their innocence based on the fact that police had decided not to proceed with the case.

To this end, they’re unwilling to go on the record now with their denials because they don’t yet know what evidence will be dredged up. Far better tactically speaking to play circumspectly, keep one’s mouth shut, and wait to see the whole picture before making a move. Admit whatever is proved, and deny anything that isn’t.

The fact that initially the team management and later the PCB are allowing this silence to continue is frustrating in the extreme. One would expect officials to demand a full and frank answer to such dire accusations, whether it be denial or admittance, and then communicate that information to the relevant people.

Initially, Pakistani authorities did seem to be taking the matter seriously. PCB president Ijaz Butt immediately set up an internal inquiry in London, while government ministers arranged for a team from the nation’s Federal Investigation Agency to be sent to aid Scotland Yard.

But later, in a typical display of intransigence, Butt insisted the three accused players would still be available for the imminent one-day series. Mercifully he backed down just hours ago. In no other Test-playing nation, surely, would players so clearly implicated in wrongdoing be considered for selection until unequivocally cleared. It was nothing but territoriality.

The reason given for their omission, though, is just one more act of shystering. Instead of making it an act of good grace – a gesture of respect to opponents and fans – it was instead claimed that “on account of the mental torture that has deeply affected [the players], they are not in the right frame of mind to play the remaining matches, therefore they have requested the PCB not to consider them until their names are cleared.” In the PCB, the Emperor’s new clothes look fabulous indeed.

The claim came from Pakistan’s UK High Commissioner, who met with the players earlier today. He also made the first reference of any sort to a denial. “They have mentioned that they are entirely innocent of the whole episode and shall defend their innocence as such… They are bright young men, one of them has just broken a world record, and we will go to a court of law to defend them.”

Crucially though, there has still been no such denial from the players or cricket officials themselves. They are sticking to their tactics and biding their time.

But if the official objective is to defend the players at all costs, rather than get to the bottom of the accusations, then apparently we will again see the worst face of Pakistani sports administration. The key here is not to save face or defend individual patches of territory. It is for cricket nations to stand united for once against one of the game’s gravest threats.

Stubbornly defending one’s own purely because they are one’s own is, to paraphrase one of Australia’s many Prime Ministerial candidates, sheer political bastardry. Scotland Yard prosecution or no, there is no question that something is awry. No doubt Majeed’s claims about rigging the Sydney Test could have been bluff to boast of his power.

But correctly predicting the exact timing of a no-ball is an extremely unlikely feat.

Predicting three borders on the impossible.

For now, we should hope that the cash and telephones confiscated provide enough evidence with which to proceed. But if the police investigation founders, the onus will be on the ICC, a body less bound by legal technicalities, to take action in its own way.

For the sport’s sake, and that of future generations of Pakistani cricketers, we can only hope that action is firmly and fearlessly taken.

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