LONDON, Aug 30, (Agencies): The International Cricket Council has promised to take “prompt and decisive action” against any Pakistan player found guilty of fixing or manipulating matches. The ICC said Monday that its Anti-Corruption and Security Unit is investigating newspaper allegations that fixing is endemic in Pakistan matches up to and including its current tour of England. “The integrity of the game is of paramount importance,” ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said. “Prompt and decisive action will be taken against those who seek to harm it. “However, the facts must first be established through a thorough investigation and it is important to respect the right of due process when addressing serious allegations of this sort.” Pakistan cricket is in crisis after British police started investigating allegations by a British tabloid that two of its players deliberately bowled no-balls against England last week in exchange for money. Individuals in illegal betting hubs allegedly have that information passed on to them so they can bet on a sure thing.

There is no suggestion that the players’ actions affected the scale of Pakistan’s defeat — its heaviest in 58 years of test cricket — any player found guilty of colluding with bookmakers to manipulate the result could be banned for life. Pakistan lost the series 3-1 after going down by an innings and 225 runs on Sunday. “The International Cricket Council, England and Wales Cricket Board and Pakistan Cricket Board are committed to a zero-tolerance approach to corruption in cricket,” Lorgat said. “All allegations of betting irregularities or fixing of matches or incidents within matches are investigated thoroughly.” The sting operation by an undercover newspaper reporter has also led to a rekindling of suspicion that the result of Pakistan’s defeat to Australia in Sydney in January was fixed.

Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the country’s highest law enforcement agency had sent a three-man delegation to London. “Scotland Yard is doing its own investigations,” Malik said. “Our team is there to assist them and also independently find out what has happened.” The Pakistan squad left London on Monday and traveled to Taunton in southwest England, where they are scheduled to play county side Somerset on Thursday. The team appears set to fulfill its remaining fixtures of two Twenty20 matches and five one-day internationals, but Javed Miandad — Pakistan’s greatest ever batsman — said the tour should only continue with new players and team management.

Tough
“It would be tough for them to handle the pressure,” Miandad said.
Now director general of the PCB, Miandad said he would be willing to coach the new team.
With the first Twenty20 match scheduled for Sunday, thousands of tickets have been sold and the remainder were still on sale Monday through English county club websites.
Team manager Yawar Saeed said that Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and captain Salman Butt had their mobile phones confiscated by police, who also searched hotel rooms and questioned players late Saturday as part of an investigation also involving the ICC’s ACSU.
The allegations first came to light when Sunday’s edition of the News of the World published a story and video from an undercover report that alleged that Asif and Amir were paid to deliberately bowl no-balls during Thursday’s opening day of the fourth test.
The News of the World tabloid said it secretly filmed its undercover reporters, posing as front men for a Far East gambling cartel, in discussion with a man it identifies as London-based businessman Mazhar Majeed, who appears to accept £150,000 ($232,000) in order to make sure no-balls are bowled at certain times.

The newspaper said it passed all its evidence to the police.
The PCB has requested to access to the investigation by Scotland Yard and said in a statement that it will make no further official comment on the case while police investigations continue.
“As the match is now subject to a police investigation, neither the ICC, ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board), PCB nor the ground authority, the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), will make any further comment until the completion of investigation.”
In Sydney, Australian cricket officials expressed shock at a match-fixing scandal engulfing Pakistan and said they were awaiting evidence that this year’s bizarre Sydney Test was rigged.
Cricket Australia (CA) chief James Sutherland said the body previously had “no doubt” about January’s Test against Pakistan, when Australia overcame a 206-run innings deficit to record a stirring win.
But Mazhar Majeed, a property developer and players’ agent, told Britain’s News of the World he earned 1.3 million US dollars for rigging the match, where there were a series of dropped catches and suicidal batting by the visitors.

“CA had been in no doubt that Australia had won that game on the merit of their on-field performance and will now wait on evidence from UK and ICC investigations before making any further comment,” Sutherland said.
During the sting, he revealed details of the alleged Sydney plot, when Australia put on 124 for their last two wickets and Pakistan slumped to 139 all out. “Let me tell you the last Test we did. It was the second Test against Australia in Sydney,” he told an undercover reporter.
“Australia had two more wickets left. They had a lead of 10 runs, yeah. And Pakistan had all their wickets remaining.
“The odds for Pakistan to lose that match, for Australia to win that match, were I think 40-1. We let them get up to 150 then everyone lost their wickets.”
Concerns were raised after the Test but an International Cricket Council (ICC) probe found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Former ICC boss Malcolm Speed said there was a compelling case to suspend Pakistan from world cricket.
“It looks as though it is endemic that several of the team members are involved and have been for some time,” Speed told national radio. “So perhaps they need a rest. It looks a fairly compelling case.”
Sutherland called the British report “most disturbing” and said CA would await further evidence before making any more comment.
“It is critical for cricket that the public has confidence in the integrity of the outcome of games, which is why CA and other ICC members have supported the significant world cricket investment in anti-corruption over the last decade or more,” he said in a statement.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting said he feared some great individual performances by his players in the Sydney Test will be “tainted” if allegations of cheating by Pakistan were proven.
“You look at Mike Hussey’s second-innings hundred (134 not out) and Peter Siddle’s batting (38) and Nathan Hauritz taking five wickets on the final day to win us the game,” he told national radio.
“All of those individual milestones will be tainted as well.”


Lawmakers demand board quit: In Islamabad, a parliamentary sports committee in Pakistan asked the government to dissolve the country’s cricket board in the latest corruption scandal to hit the sport.
“Our committee has unanimously recommended to dissolve the Pakistan Cricket Board and if it is not done we will collectively resign from this committee,” said Iqbal Muhammad Ali, chief of the committee in parliament’s lower house.
“We also demand that the government call back the team’s manager and coaches immediately and send new management (to England) to handle the crisis,” Ali told reporters outside Parliament House.
Removal
The standing committee on sports has repeatedly sought the removal of the cricket board’s chief, Ijaz Butt, in recommendations to President Asif Zardari for mismanagement and the poor performance of the national team.

But Zardari, who is a patron of the board by virtue of his office, has ignored the demand.
Ali said the parliamentary committee would convene a special meeting on the issue of match-fixing and would hold its own inquiry into the controversy.
“We have also asked the government to take legal action against the players involved and send them to jail,” he said.
Pakistan cricket great Imran Khan said the sport was headed for crisis with the careers of top players in jeopardy over their alleged involvement in a gambling scam.
The scandal has cast a pall over the national sport, which has been dogged by “fixing” allegations since the 1990s as well as charges of ball-tampering.
“I hope that it’s not true,” Khan told AFP. “If, God forbid, it turns out to be true then it will be the biggest setback for Pakistan cricket and, probably, end the careers of the two best bowlers in the world,” he said.

“To me Aamer is potentially the best young talent in the world and I feel sad for him.”
“I think demoralisation has reached the point of extreme in the last two days. The general feeling is that it’s one thing after another,” said Khan, a former captain of Pakistan and swashbuckling all-rounder.
“First we were called a terrorist country because a dictator pulled us into someone else’s war,” said cricketer-turned-politician Khan, referring to former leader General Pervez Musharraf and the US-led war in Afghanistan.
“Then there were the floods which have left millions of people homeless... and suddenly this cricket controversy comes up. This has shattered everyone in Pakistan.”
Khan said the lack of good role models for the country’s youth was a problem, but said he felt sorry for accused captain Salman Butt.
“Butt obviously looked like a bright captain, and if he is ousted then it will create another captaincy crisis for the team,” said Khan, following the removal of previous skipper Younis Khan.