Ijaz Butt accuses England players of match-fixing

[Miraz]

Dramatic claims, very filmy.

I hope he has some proof to back up his claims, otherwise he is in big trouble and will take Pakistan cricket down the drain. Words coming out of the mouth of a cricket chief should not be butt talks.

He might have just handed his butt to the international media.

[deshifan]

udo-r pindi budo-r ghare

[Neel Here]

he will be the butt of jokes now. amazing to what lengths people will go to save their butt.

[Zeeshan]

What's her name?

[Rabz]

Hehe... Butt talking !!!

[_Rafi_]

Disgraceful!

[Shehwar]

Shocking! R.I.P Pakistan cricket.

Posted via BC Mobile Edition (iPhone)

[view360]

This was a very unprofessional display by Mr. Butt. He could not yet come out from the traditional culture of denial in Pakistani institutions as ever. Burying head in to the sand is not the solution.

[bujhee kom]

Never trust anyone with a family/last name "Butt" in the first place, ever! Comon!

Amader deshe jodi karo naam Ejaz Pacha hoto, take ki amra Mr. Pacha bole deke shomman dekhate partaam, ki bole bhais?

[sir john]

poor commet by butt.

[tiger_2007]

It's a disgraceful comment by a top executive in the board. This stupid Butt has to go for the sake of cricket in the world. This stupid guy even made a stupid comment when Bangladesh had to cancel Pak tour to BD due to our internal issue (BDR mutiny).

[Fazal]

I have different perspective about the whole episode.

Some Pak players have a track record of cheating, and some players like Asif already had questionable behavior in the past and Butt was already the butts of jokes for a while now. Also player grouping and sabotaging the national team’s interest to get even with other players is also not new in Pakistan. Furthermore the way PAK cricket board runs the organization is also a good example of bad governance.


Having said that, I cannot blame too much to Butt for his last outburst (after 3rd ODI) for the following reason:

My First set of questions:

When spot-fixing was revealed by the news media with the help of a bookie, I was surprised and saddened and really start disliking the suspected culprits... in my mind, I was asking "how could they do this to their country ?" Also I was saddened by finding out Ameer is one of the other suspects. The evidence was pretty strong (and I believe true) so I am ok with the accusation and the ban.

BUT then after 3rd ODI,

I read "The ICC has launched an investigation into the third one-day international between England and Pakistan at The Oval after it received information from a newspaper before the game began alleging that bookies were aware of certain scoring patterns that occurred during the match. The information was passed on to the ICC by The Sun, which said it was based on details of calls between a person based in Dubai and a bookie in Delhi. " [Source: ICC investigating Oval one-dayer (cricinfo) ]

"A source informed The Sun newspaper that a certain scoring pattern would emerge during certain stages of the match and, broadly speaking, that information appeared to be correct," Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, said. [Source: ICC investigating Oval one-dayer (cricinfo)]
[pretty much accusing the game was compromized]

In separate news it was also said that “The England and Wales Cricket Board has revealed that no England players or officials are implicated in the new spot-fixing allegations that emerged on Saturday and confirmed that Pakistan's tour will continue for the final two one-day internationals.” [Source: ECB confirms tour continues despite investigation (cricinfo)]

[means the game was compromized but English players are not suspect.]


If anyone watched the game, the game was full of ups and downs with Pak started slowly and 240s was not considered a good score in that game by the commentators. And Pak scored that by recovering early disaster. Then England started very well. At the end …PAK won due to England's late collapse and Gul's heroic spell. It was a game with down-and-up-and-down-and-up kind of sequence for Pakistan. England is one of the strongest ODI team and Pakistan is one of the broken team right now.
I was ok with ICC's action until their latest activity (i.e. 3rd ODI and prematurely clearing English players and not the Pak players).

So how is it possible that Pakistani players (all by themselves) can control that kind of up-and-down-and-up-and-down pattern all by themselves with no English players involved? How ICC so quickly removed English players out of the investigation for the 3rd ODI and not the PAK players? If the allegation is true, there is no way they can control that kind of pattern all by themselves?


My Second set of questions:

The 2nd question I am having in my mind is: what benefit the booker has by exposing his own source?

This is the 2nd time it is happening and this time the source is from bookies from Dubai and Delhi. If I am a bookie, why should I expose my source and pretty much screw up my carrier and reputation? No player will cooperate with me as I will lose all my trustworthiness to them. Even Mafia has some rules of engagement in their business. Are they really real bookies or pretended bookies working for some influential force that has other hidden agendas?




I know I am the minority here and I know my comments will be misunderstood in a way that may sound like I am supporting the players who compromised and sold their pride sold their country's interest to make few more bucks. But I think its important that somebody raise these questions so that if there is any conspiracy, we don’t play as a pawn to support anyone’s hidden agenda. And that’s why I liked what butt said for the first time in my life.

But then its just me (who like to ask the unpopular question)... and then there are others ....

[Neel Here]

I think you have some almost valid points if not for the fact that the 3rd ODI allegations are least important to the case, since it comes from the sun - quite a shitty tabloid. butt has done a major disservice to pakistan cricket by over-reacting to this set of scoop. let me explain why.
in the current environment, ICC HAS TO investigate any seemingly true incident of fixing, even if it is mentioned by a circus clown, do otherwise and the whole cricket world will call for their head.
in fact that is all they have done, they haven't accused any players, pak or otherwise, nor have they come out and said that the allegation by sun is proven.
butt's irresponsible comments would have made sense only IF ICC took it for granted that the allegations were true and charged or suspended a couple of pak players. all they have done is launch a routine investigation and mention to the press that prima facie , the info from bookies matched what happened on field. for all we know it could be a coincidence. haroon lorgat hasn't ruled out coincidence has he ?

moreover, when butt accuses eng cricketers of taking huge sums of money, (i.e those from a board that has gone out of its way to help them and incurred financial losses in the process ), he better have very good proof to back it up.

[godzilla]

funny that he points out Bookies are talking about english players taking bribe! Dosen't that also kind of backfire as in He has contact with the bookies himself? -_- what a moronic man

[Surfer]

Originally Posted by Neel Here
I think you have some almost valid points if not for the fact that the 3rd ODI allegations are least important to the case, since it comes from the sun - quite a shitty tabloid. butt has done a major disservice to pakistan cricket by over-reacting to this set of scoop. let me explain why.
in the current environment, ICC HAS TO investigate any seemingly true incident of fixing, even if it is mentioned by a circus clown, do otherwise and the whole cricket world will call for their head.
in fact that is all they have done, they haven't accused any players, pak or otherwise, nor have they come out and said that the allegation by sun is proven.
butt's irresponsible comments would have made sense only IF ICC took it for granted that the allegations were true and charged or suspended a couple of pak players. all they have done is launch a routine investigation and mention to the press that prima facie , the info from bookies matched what happened on field. for all we know it could be a coincidence. haroon lorgat hasn't ruled out coincidence has he ?

moreover, when butt accuses eng cricketers of taking huge sums of money, (i.e those from a board that has gone out of its way to help them and incurred financial losses in the process ), he better have very good proof to back it up.

Very good post Neel.

@Fazal: We need to understand that ICC did not accuse anyone of match fixing. All ICC did was to launch an investigation to verify if there could be any truth to it. And that, they have to do. Whenever someone comes up with some evidence with an allegation of any kind of fixing, the ICC is obligated to investigate to see how strong the evidence is. The ICC can not just say "I dont believe" and sit back. Of course they wont react to mere allegations, but when someone comes up with some evidence, the authenticity of the evidence has to be verified. They have to see how deep it goes and if it's strong enough to pursue. Therefore, the ICC has not done any injustice to anyone. Thats just standard procedure.

As far as your second question is concerned, Fazal, that is how most law enforcing agencies work. They capitalize on leaks and informers who mostly come from the criminal organizations. If you think the bookies are running a fool proof organization that can not and will not leak anything to the media ever, you are wrong. It could be for money or it could be to settle some personal score or it could be for anything else. But if certain predictions were made and the predictions came close enough to reality, the information, irrespective of the source, can not be let go uninvestigated.

I really fail to see how this leaves Pakistan in an aggrieved state. On the contrary, PCB should be the most eager to have an investigation, fully cooperate and get it's players cleared. On the contrary, PCB choses to play the victim and conspiracy card.

Butt should know better than to behave like a teenage forummer. He is the chairman of a board and he should know that he cant go around making allegations of that nature. Especially given that he is the probably most incompetent and corrupt man in world cricket.

[Kabir]

After giving it a thought, wasn't it ICC who initially said that the match was fixed? If they said that they had proof of that, wht's wrong with what butt just said?

Food for thought!

[Neel Here]

ICC is not nutty enough to say such a thing. I've no idea from where you got that piece of information, from butt's interview perhaps ?

The ICC, however, clarified that it was premature to suggest anything untoward had occurred during Pakistan's 23-run victory on Friday.

"A source informed The Sun newspaper that a certain scoring pattern would emerge during certain stages of the match and, broadly speaking, that information appeared to be correct," Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, said.

"We therefore feel it is incumbent upon us to launch a full enquiry into this particular game, although it is worth pointing out at this stage that we are not stating as fact that anything untoward has occurred. Only in the fullness of the investigation can that be established."

[Tiger Manc]

Originally Posted by godzilla
funny that he points out Bookies are talking about english players taking bribe! Dosen't that also kind of backfire as in He has contact with the bookies himself? -_- what a moronic man

that's exactly what i was thinking!!

[Tiger Manc]

He can't make those kind of comments if he has no proof! If he's saying it in retaliation than that's pretty poor of him. He has to back up his statements with proof and state which england players were involved otherwise he'll end up looking like a fool.

[Fazal]

Originally Posted by Neel Here
ICC is not nutty enough to say such a thing. I've no idea from where you got that piece of information, from butt's interview perhaps ?

I don't know whether you are looking for source of my quotes or your comments were towards Kabir, but provided the source anyway in my original comment for further clarification.

However to me,

"A source informed The Sun newspaper that a certain scoring pattern would emerge during certain stages of the match and, broadly speaking, that information appeared to be correct," Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, said. [Source: ICC investigating Oval one-dayer (cricinfo)]

gives me an impression that haroon agrees that allegation has some teeth. But he failed to explain, why he didn't informed the board(s) first? How come they already cleared Eng players before the investigation even started? Where as how they already suspended the PAK players even before they concluded the investigation in the 1st allegation [which may be right verdict but too early to give before the completion of the investigation. ]

Butt and some PAK players have their own baggage and credibility issue based on past act. But in a way ICC has simmilar issue (may be in different level) and its own bagage.... specially how and when they use their hammer against full members... loosk like i depends on the country we are talking about... you have the elite and then you have the rest.

For example, ICC worked as a toothless tiger when some elite team(s) refused to fullfil ICC scheduled tours to team for the excuse of "Political situation (example ZIM), weak team (example Bangladesh), or security risk (example Pakistan). Also some cases ICC played as a silent role players when a certain country (players and umpires) targeted opponent key players (exmaple SriLankan tour to Australia).

Bookies were there for a while now, we keep hearing about these Indian and Dubai based bookies. The warning was there for soo long... what ICC have really done proactively to address the issue?

In T20 issue in Indian, ICC played as a silent partner (of BCCI) in the whole deal. Kapil Dev's league came up first with the idea, BCCI came late but end up bulldozing Kapil Dev's league. To please BCCI, ICC and other boards complied. To please BCCI, ICC banned that league, which was unjust in my opinion as they were the one who came up with the t20 league idea in india first. Other boards (of bangladesh, SriLanka, Pakistan, etc) end up punishing their own players to please BCCI.

So yes ...in this case Butt may be butts of all joke, and yes ....some PAK players may be corrupt....but I have a strong feeling that there are other culprits in these ... and I have no doubt in mind that ICC is working like a United Nation, if you are in the elite group you get one kind of judgement, if you are not, you get another kind of judgement.

[Kabir]

Originally Posted by Neel Here
ICC is not nutty enough to say such a thing. I've no idea from where you got that piece of information, from butt's interview perhaps ?

I'm assuming your post was in response to mine.

Do I now have to show you where ICC claimed that the match was fixed? The more I look at this issue without the paki bias, the more I see that the whole sky fell on this guy just because it's HIM who uttered the word...and no-one else. I understand that he must have not helped the cause by being a chamcha of jordari and being like whatever he is...but in this particular case, I really feel that poor guy is a victim of extreme bias.

[Fazal]

This is from today's theDailstar

Wednesday, September 22, 2010SportsAfridi & co could have called cops
Afp, KarachiPakistan's one-day captain Shahid Afridi said on Tuesday his team could have filed a police complaint against England batsman Jonathan Trott over an altercation with fast bowler Wahab Riaz.

Newspaper reports said Trott and Riaz had an altercation minutes before the fourth one-day at Lord's, with Trott grabbing Riaz by the throat after both exchanged heated words in the net area. Reports said the incident started when Trott accidentally struck Riaz with his pads as he took them off.
"When Riaz was returning after warming up Trott called him a 'match fixer' and that he [Riaz] was up to harming Test cricket and hit his face with the pad," Afridi said in London. "It could have been a police case because it is a crime to hit someone, but we showed a big heart and did not press for it."

Trott was also involved in an ugly exchange of words with Pakistan wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal during the first one-day game at Chester-le-Street on September 10.
After the altercation between Trott and Riaz, Afridi confirmed that there were suggestions Pakistan should not play the match in protest. "But we finally decided that it wouldn't be appropriate," said Afridi, praising his team for their spirit.

No doubt why Emran Khan mentioned about Double Standard in another news. Its a clear case of Trott ccrossing the boundery of any kind of civility by physically attacking another opponent player.

Where is ICC and its long stick?... where is ECB and its big mouth?.... where is game umpire?... where is any kind of diciplinary action?
If the role would have been changed i.e if one of the PAK player would grabed the throat of an English player, what would happen to him... as a matter of fact the whole PAK team would be punished even before any formal investigation is completed.

It happened in their own field in front of people, they don't need formal complain by anyone to act to keep the dignity of cricket. But they did nothing .... not even blinked their eyes as if nothing happend.

Where is these kind of arrogance is comming from? What signal ICC and ECb is sending to so call other non elite teams..."its ok if we do it... but not ok if you do it?"

Thats why I kind of like what Butt is doing i.e. trying to kick ICCs and ECBs butt... and I am all for it... Go butt go ... kick ICCs butt.....

[Kabir]

That news about Trott is shocking to say the least. Having a fight with your own team mate is ugly. But grabbing your opponent by the collar for WHATEVER the reason may be...that's just ridiculous.

I'm not sure why I didn't hear about that news until just now. I'm not a big news reader, but I'm sure any shocking cricket-related news I would have heard on BC (part of the reason why I'm here). I didn't see this news on CricInfo as a major headline...not sure if it's there even. Gotta check.

[Neel Here]

Originally Posted by Kabir
I'm assuming your post was in response to mine.

Do I now have to show you where ICC claimed that the match was fixed? The more I look at this issue without the paki bias, the more I see that the whole sky fell on this guy just because it's HIM who uttered the word...and no-one else. I understand that he must have not helped the cause by being a chamcha of jordari and being like whatever he is...but in this particular case, I really feel that poor guy is a victim of extreme bias.

yes, it was in response to your post. please do show me where ICC claimed that the match was fixed. I've quoted haroon lorgat's (I suppose you know who that is) exact comments and he specifically says that he does not claim the match was fixed.

the sky has fallen on butt because he has made a very serious accusation without a shred of proof just because he got unnerved by a tabloid report. what exactly is so 'poor guy' about him ? that he is trying to save his own butt by accusing any convenient target ?
rest assured, if it was BD pak was playing against he would have accused BD players of fixing. I wonder if you would have said 'poor guy' then ?
if anything the reaction is LESS because it is butt since people do expect butt to behave like a clown.

[tiger_2007]

Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, has issued an apology for the comments he made during the one-day series between England and Pakistan when he claimed the hosts' players had taken "enormous amounts of money" to lose the third ODI at The Oval. The England players have accepted Butt's apology and withdrawn the threat of legal action which had loomed since the outburst.
In a joint statement issued by the PCB and ECB, Butt admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims - which he repeated to multiple media outlets - and that he regretted the "misunderstanding" that followed even though he initially refused to back down from his comments.
"I wish personally and on behalf of the Pakistan Cricket Board to withdraw the comments I made concerning the England and Wales Cricket Board and each of the England players who played in the one-day International at The Oval on Friday 17 September. It is regrettable that there was a misunderstanding arising from my comments.
"I would like to make it quite clear that in the statements which I made that I never intended to question the behaviour and integrity of the England players nor the ECB nor to suggest that any of them were involved in any corrupt practices or in a conspiracy against Pakistan cricket.
"In particular, I wish to make it clear that I have never seen any evidence of any wrongdoing by any England player or the ECB at any time," he added. "I deeply and sincerely regret that my statements have been interpreted to cast doubt upon the good names of the England players and the ECB and hope that this public withdrawal will draw a line under the matter."
Butt also acknowledged the role the ECB are playing in trying to keep Pakistan on the international scene despite the team being unable to play at home due to security concerns. Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, heads the Pakistan task force and the team played a neutral series against Australia during the English season and plans had been in place for them to return next year until the spot-fixing scandal erupted.
"The ECB and its chairman have been and continue to be a friend of and hugely supportive of Pakistan cricket," Butt said. "I am very grateful for their efforts in that regard and for their hospitality this summer. We at the PCB, like all other cricket governing bodies, are committed to a zero tolerance policy to corruption in the game and will continue to work hard with the relevant authorities to eradicate it."
Following Butt's outburst Andrew Strauss, with the full backing of the board, said the players would pursue all their legal avenues if Butt didn't respond to a letter demanding a full and public apology. "The ECB and the England players who played at The Oval warmly welcome this withdrawal and now regard the matter closed," the statement concluded. "Giles Clarke confirmed that following this statement he is continuing in his role as the ICC Pakistan task team chairman."
Earlier in the day Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, had rebuked Butt for not going through the official channels if he had concerns about match-fixing. "I would have been much more satisfied had it been a direct approach to us or ACSU inspectors," he said.
ESPNcricinfo also understands that the ICC considered suspending Butt over the remarks but gave the chairman time to issue an apology.


===================

This idiot finally realized his stupid act. This idiot moron needs to be kicked out of the position that he is holding for last three years.