Fixing in Pakistan Cricket, an Analysis

It’s to no one’s surprise that fixing has ruined many careers and had at one point become synonymous with Pakistani cricket. For this post I will be going through the history and mainly our matches with India in the World Cups from 1996-2011.

Fixing has been taking place around the world for decades but in Pakistan especially it has been occurring since at least the 1970's with arguably the first whistleblower for Pakistan named Sarfraz Nawaz revealing all.

Fixing seemed to gain steam especially during the 1990s with Saleem Malik offering Shane Warn and Tim May, an astounding $200,000 to bowl poorly during the 94-95 Test match series. Another example took place between a match with Pakistan and New Zealand where he was accused of manipulating with the results of the toss. He was later handed a life time ban under the Qayoom report.

We now come to the 1996 ODI world cup a match between Pakistan and India, where Wasim Akram was missing resulting in a defeat of 39 runs. Accusations started pouring in of fixing from Wasims own team mates, who accused him of deliberately missing out. Wasim was cleared by medical staff to play the game against India, but just five minutes before the toss. He was also cleared by the teams physiotherapist Dan Kiel before suddenly changing his mind. This also saw the controversial semi final between India and Sri Lanka where fixing allegations took place after the Indian batting collapse. Wasim Akram is regarded as Pakistan's greatest bowler of all time but has an undeniable hand in fixing and deteriorating the sport.

We now move to the 1999 ODI world cup where Pakistan went in as favorites, this is where allegations starting racking up for severe match fixing regarding Pakistan. It is to no ones surprise that Pakistan has a history of being involved in major upsets but the match between Pakistan and Bangladesh really spun heads, with legal bets placing 33-1 that Pakistan would win that match, making an upset, raking in massive loads of cash for anyone betting on Bangladesh. The match between Pakistan and India also seemed to come under much scrutiny after Pakistan qualified for the super six lost to India, where speculations started pouring in again after the sudden loss, with chief of the South African cricket board and former board chief Majid Khan bringing accusations of fixing. Other accusations also include.(This other source is interesting, cant confirm its validity but is an interesting read.) I also must mention the fixing allegation that took place during the final between Pakistan and Australia where arguably the most controversial toss decision of all time took place where multiple players told Wasim to not bat first. Due to such controversies the 2003 world cup was monitored heavily for fixing, as the sports integrity was at stake.

This resulted in the Qayoom report where players like Saleem Mailk and Ata Rehman were banned permanently, where players like Inzi, Saeed Anwar, Younis, Mustaq were given fines for not cooperating or being involved in other ways of gambling and fixing. Wasim was not allowed to captain the team anymore due to his character. Judge Qayoom later admitted to being light on Wasim due to his admiration for him.

I will briefly mention the 2007 ODI world cup where Bob Woolmer was apparently strangled to death after Pakistan surprisingly lost to Ireland. This was first treated as murder, but was changed to natural causes, this article is very interesting and goes over one of the most interesting case in cricketing history.

For the 2011, I genuinely think this was fixed, from the catch drops of Sachin, to the controversial DRS call. Allegations started pouring in for this match too from the scorecard and how the game would play out. A bookie also claimed that the match had been fixed, this being revealed through a sting operation. The former chief of the PCB had also alleged that the game may have been fixed. Also want to add this, read this it is "coincidental", not a source but was quite accurate of the results.

Some of you may be wondering why I am mentioning India so much in relation to fixing, it is undeniable that most of the revenue from cricketing comes from this nation it is the center of cricket money making. India is home to the largest fixing market in the world, so naturally this would be place to gravitate towards. Pakistani players salaries are laughably low, and it would make sense for them to gravitate to such lucrative offers. Many careers have ruined fixing from the Salman, Amir, Asif fiasco, where the fixing world was exposed to the entire world. If Wasim was banned and humiliated and stopped where would we be? Would we have had more trophies? A revamped system?

I understand much of this can be chopped up to cope and speculation, but I have outlined a narrative for you guys to read. No one will go out and clearly say they are fixing, we have to analyze and collect certain rumors, facts, and circumstances to make our own conclusions, hopefully this is enough to convince you guys, that our so called legends are frauds.

I would like to end this with a story about what we could have achieved if Wasim had the integrity of Imran. There's a reason why everyone goes crazy over Imran Khan because he was known for his integrity, one interesting story was during the Austro-Asia cup final Imran Khan got a phone call the night before saying the match would be fixed at 2 AM, from Javed Miandad. Apparently 4 players were to sell out and make Pakistan lose the game, before the match he called up the team and said that whoever underperforms will be kicked and I will personally see that you will go to jail, he even went out to the bookie and wanted all the money to go on to Pakistan to win the game, Pakistan went on to win the game without a hiccup.

A video I really recommend watching.