’Pak players wanted to fix matches and oust Afridi’

Pak players were ready to fix matches to get Afridi ousted as skipper in 2010, agent Mazhar Majeed told undercover reporter

'Pak players wanted to fix matches and oust Afridi'

Pak players were ready to fix matches to get Afridi ousted as skipper in 2010, agent Mazhar Majeed told undercover reporter

Pakistan cricketers were ready to throw one-day internationals and Twenty20s in a bid to undermine then captain Shahid Afridi and make "a hell of a lot of money", a London court heard yesterday. Mazhar Majeed, an agent for several Pakistan players, told an undercover reporter last year that the players wanted Afridi replaced by then-Test captain Salman Butt and were prepared to fix matches to do it, Southwark Crown Court heard.

No support: Skipper Shahid Afridi watches the T20 international
against England at Cardiff on Sept 7, 2010. Pic/Getty Images

"A lot of the boys, they want to f**k up Afridi because he's trying to f**k up things for them, and he's the captain of the Twenty20 and one-day," Majeed claimed. "They all want Butt to be captain... They want to lose anyway."

Hell of a lot...
The agent went on: "The timing you've come into is perfect because the one-days and the Twenty20s are about to start. We're going to be making a hell of a lot of money in the Twenty20s and the one-days. "Say for example Twenty20. I will tell you the bowlers, how many minimum runs they are going to concede, which is much more than usual. They are going to concede those runs.

"With the batsmen I'm going to tell you how many, say for the example the two opening batsmen Salman and Kamran (Akmal) for example, you've only got 20 overs, they're going to waste two overs, three overs... The Twenty20s are the easiest."

The jury also saw footage of an earlier meeting in Majeed's London home, where the reporter recorded the agent on the telephone with an unidentified man in India, discussing deliberately throwing the England v Pakistan Test match at The Oval, which was under way at the time.

Indian contact
Majeed called his Indian contact and told him: "What offer can you give me for today's game? Tell me, just give me a figure now, we haven't got long. "There's a possibility, I'm just telling you that now, they're talking at least 1.2 (million)u00a0-- at least. In dollars."

The prosecution alleged that Majeed and the mystery contact were floating the possibility of Pakistan deliberately losing the game. Referring to the number of Pakistan players under his wing, Majeed said: "Boss, you know how many I've got, you know that they do it. So of course that's not a problem. But you just give me the figure and I'm going to get back to you. We haven't got much time. One million, yeah?"