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The head of the International Cricket Council has called the fixing allegations against three suspended Pakistan players the most serious case of corruption to hit the sport since South Africa captain Hansie Cronje was banned for life 10 years ago.
Speaking on Friday, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said allegations that Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt conspired with bookmakers to deliver deliberate no-balls in last week’s fourth Test against England were hugely detrimental to the image of cricket.
“In terms of corruption in the sport, this must rank as the next worst after the Hansie Cronje case,” Lorgat said.
Cronje admitted to forecasting results in exchange for money from a London bookmaker, prompting the ICC to create its Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.
The ICC could still widen the investigation into the allegations against Asif, Amir and Butt – whom it suspended late Thursday – to cover last year’s contentious Test match against Australia in Sydney.
ACSU chairman Ronnie Flanagan said the current charges pertain only to last week’s fourth Test against England but that the ICC could still look into what he called a “dysfunctional” tour of Australia by Pakistan.
“We will go where the evidential trail takes us,” Flanagan said. “At this stage, we do not have such evidence to hand for that tour or that match.”
Flanagan added that there were separate investigations into other international sides but that he did not think that the current case was “the tip of an iceberg.”
Flanagan and Lorgat would not comment on reports in Friday’s edition of Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper that marked notes used in the sting operation that led to the allegations had been found in Butt’s locker.
Lorgat and Flanagan said the ICC reacted as quickly as it could to the initial allegations against the Pakistan trio.
The suspensions followed allegations by a British newspaper that Amir and Asif deliberately bowled no-balls at predetermined points in last week’s fourth test against England.
Amir, Asif and Butt were being questioned by police on Friday. They were first questioned late Saturday when the allegations were made public and had their mobile phones confiscated.
“There was no specific tipping point that caused us to act yesterday,” Flanagan said. “Rather it was the culmination of a process of examining all the evidence and taking legal advice.
“They have a case to answer in our disciplinary arena.”
But Pakistan’s top diplomat in Britain has called the suspension of the players before police investigations are complete “unhelpful, premature and unnecessary.”
Pakistan High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan said cricket’s ruling body should not have acted until investigations by the police and its own anti-corruption unit were complete.
Hasan, who met with the players for three hours in London on Thursday, reiterated his belief that the players are innocent.
“There is a live police inquiry which takes precedence over both the ICC, civil or regulatory investigation and indeed any internal disciplinary investigation,” Hasan said in an interview with BBC Radio 4. “To take action now is unhelpful, premature and unnecessary considering the players had already voluntarily withdrawn from playing.”
Flanagan said the 14-day window for an appeal by Pakistan could be extended if the complexity of the case demanded it.
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