Latif adds more spice to match-fixing affair

Latif adds more spice to match-fixing affair
H S Rao

LONDON, JULY 9: Former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif has said the 1996 Lord's Test between England and Pakistan was fixed and that he had been offered a huge amount to get out cheaply in that match, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday.

Rashid said that a bookmaker had called him in his hotel room after the first day's play and offered him a sum of 15,000 pounds if he got out cheaply but he rejected the offer straighaway.

Pakistan had scored 290 for nine at the end of the first day, with Rashid Latif seven not out and fast bowler, Ata-ur-Rehman yet to open account.

``He (bookmaker) called me at my hotel room and said if you are out before 300 runs we are giving you 15,000 pounds,'' Latif told the newspaper while in London last week.

``He did not give his name but I could tell he was an Indian -- the Indian accent is slightly different from that of a Pakistani,'' he said.

Latif claimed he rejected the offer straightaway and informed the matter to the team manager Yawar Saeed. The manager advised him to play his own game.

On the second morning, Latif batted on to reach 45 and take Pakistan's total to 340. England conceded a first innings lead when they were dismissed for 285 and lost by 164 runs.

Latif, who went on to play 22 Tests and was made captain partly on the grounds of his undisputed integrity, also said that he had been offered 10 lakh rupees by Salim Malik to throw Pakistan's One-Day International against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1995.

``I told him `I will give you an answer in the morning' but we didn't speak. When I took two catches he said `What are you doing? We must lose this game.''', the paper quoted him as saying.

Malik has since been banned for life for match-fixing.

Among many other matches, both One-Day Internationals and Tests, Latif believed that England's last game in Sharjah before the 1999 World Cup was fixed.

``Javed Miandad (the Pakistan coach) had a big argument with the players after that match and he resigned afterwards. He told the Qayyum commission about this Sharjah match,'' Latif said.

Latif sees the election of Bangladesh to full membership of the International Cricket Council as a related issue, and unlike many other critics of that decision cannot be labelled racist for condemning it, the newspaper said.

``It is my belief that Kenya are better than Bangladesh, but Bangladesh officials have a lot of money and that is why they have Test status. In 1998, they played in a One-Day competition in Pakistan and lost to Karachi club sides,'' Latif said.

On behalf of the ICC, the code of conduct commission chairman Lord Griffiths is due to study the Qayyum report along with Justice Cliver Popple well and Sir Denis Williams of West Indies.

They will judge whether the punishments so far meted out to Pakistan's guilty players have been appropriate and in accordance with ICC guidelines, the paper added.