Demand for probe into bookie issue

KARACHI - Despite the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) decision to put the issue of bookmakers allegedly trying to contact the country’s national players in Sri Lanka under wraps, an influential member of the board has promised to raise the issue at a meeting soon.

Muhammad Ali Shah, a member of the PCB Governing Board and sports minister of the southern province of Sindh, has said it is an important issue and should be discussed thoroughly. Shah said he will raise it during the next meeting of the PCB governing board.

Abdul Qadir, a former Pakistan Test leg-spinner, has also demanded an inquiry into the incident. Earlier this week Pakistani players alleged that they were approached by suspicious characters at their team hotel during the two Colombo Tests.

The reports quoted Pakistan manager Yawar Saeed saying that some of the players had complained to him about the presence of undesirable people in the team hotel. Saeed also said the matter was raised with the hotel management after which the Pakistan team members were shifted to some other floor of the hotel.

Saeed, however, later denied making such remarks.

“No such thing happened,” Saeed was quoted as saying in an interview. “There are usually many other guests at the hotel, who want autographs and photographs with the players, and then maybe invite them for a coffee or something. I just instructed the players not to go out with people they didn’t know from before. And that is the usual protocol.”

However, one of the players currently with the national team in Sri Lanka confirmed that some of them were indeed approached in the team hotel by “a few undesirable elements” who invited them for tea and dinner.

“The players refused and informed the team management,” he said.

Pakistan captain Younis Khan gave a different view on the issue saying that no such incident took place. “No bookie has approached me. If ever one does, I will catch him and hand him over to International Cricket Council because these people have destroyed the game,” he said.

But on the same day, PCB chairman Ijaz Butt told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Sports in Islamabad that the rooms were indeed changed. “We got some reports and we changed floors,” Butt told the parliamentarians.

It is because of such conflicting comments on the issue that Qadir has called for an immediate probe into the incident.

“Different comments on the same issue from the manager and captain of the Pakistan team makes me suspicious. I believe that it is a serious issue which needs to be probed,” said Qadir.