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Life ban recommended for Pak players

A preliminary report by the Pakistan Cricket Board into match-fixing allegations, which have haunted the country's top players for several years, recommended that Wasim Akram, Salim Malik and Ijaz Ahmed be banned pending further investigations.

The report follows years of accusations against Pakistani players. In 1994, Australian players Mark Waugh, Tim May and Shane Warne accused Malik of trying to bribe them. Malik was cleared by a hearing in Pakistan.

May, now head of the Australian Cricketers' Association, said that subsequent events had clearly vindicated his stance at the time.

On Wednesday, Syed Naushad Ali, manager of Pakistan's Commonwealth Games team, said that if the new allegations were correct, the players had "betrayed their nation.''

"It is most unfortunate from a cricketing point of view and from a national point of view,'' Ali told the media.

"The prestige of pakistani players has plunged a lot after banning them for life.''

Pakistan's chef-de-mission, Malik Nasir Khan, said Malik and Ijaz were on their way to Canada to play in the annual Sahara Cup competition against India.

Nasir Khan, a Parliamentarian who is also on an 11-member inquiry into Pakistani cricket, said Malik had been cleared recently by the government.

Khan played with Malik during a career of 51 Tests from 1978-'87.

Asked if he was suspicious about Malik then, Khan said, "The suspicions were always there, there were always doubts.''

Khan said he had been the subject of one offer to throw a game.

"I told him get out. I never saw him again.''

Reports said the Pakistan finding was based on interviews with current and former players and spelled out the involvement of players in betting and match fixing.

The report by the three-member committee said Akram, Malik and Ijaz should be kept away from other Pakistan players, "to save youngsters and new entrants in the game from being affected further and spoiled by the soiling atmosphere.''

"Before the finding there wasn't evidence to suggest it but now it seems there is the evidence to take this thing further,'' May said, on being told of the new development. "I'm not out there campaigning to bring these players to justice. Personally I think the issue of May, Warne and Waugh in 1994 has been buried and this is a new inquiry.

"But in a broad cricket sense it's bloody disappointing that match-fixing may well be part of the game of cricket and you'd hope that every stone would be turned to ensure it is removed from the game.''

UNI