Zulqarnain Haider added a few more details to his story at an impromptu press conference in a Southall curry restaurant on Wednesday night. But not enough to persuade the officials of the Pakistan Cricket Board that he is a whistle-blower on endemic corruption.
“In our culture, when you are worried about your family’s safety, you run to their side,” Taffazul Rizvi, the PCB’s legal adviser, said. “Whereas he has run to a different country.”
Rizvi also questioned why, if Haider was approached to throw the fourth and fifth one-day internationals as he claims, he should have waited almost four days before acting. The alleged approach must have come on the Thursday night at the very latest, while Haider did not flee the country until Monday morning.
In a further twist to the story, Telegraph Sport understands that Haider would not have played in the Monday one-day international in any caseWhen Umar Akmal took over the gloves on Monday morning, it was widely assumed that the change had been imposed on Pakistan by Haider’s absence.
In fact, the intention had been to shift the balance of the team all along, with Akmal’s double-role allowing Mohammad Yousuf, who had just arrived in Dubai after recovering from a groin strain, to come in and strengthen a misfiring top six.
Haider’s omission was decided at a team meeting on Sunday night. For the player himself, who had been painted as Pakistan’s saviour after making an unbeaten 19 in the fourth one-day international, it must have come as a shock.
The International Cricket Council confirmed on Thursday that officers from the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit had visited Haider in his Heathrow hotel room on Tuesday night, although it is not thought that the player was able to expand substantially on the information he provided to TV networks about the man who approached him in Dubai.
“I remember his face and he spoke in Urdu which was not the way we speak. I can’t say much as I’m not sure of his nationality,” Haider told a Pakistani channel.
The ICC received criticism for its handling of the situation on Thursday from Tim May, chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations. “In the past, players have gone to the anti-corruption unit and somewhere details of their talks has reached the media,” May said.
“It gives the players the question over whether they can trust the ICC’s anti-corruption unit. The culture of cricket needs to change from top to bottom, from administrators to grass roots level. That culture needs to be one of zero tolerance of corruption.”
May suggested that the players’ unions themselves should be the first port of call for cricketers needing to report instances of corruption.
But the ICC is unlikely to buy into this idea, especially as there are no active unions operating in India or Pakistan — the two countries where illegal bookmaking appears to be most influential.
Meanwhile, Misbah-ul-Haq is due to become Pakistan’s fourth Test captain of the year on Friday morning, as his team prepare to take on South Africa in Dubai. Of the previous three, Yousuf is out of favour, Shahid Afridi has retired and Salman Butt is suspended pending a spot-fixing investigation
