Hameed denies newspaper revelations

The Pakistan opener, Yasir Hameed, has clarified a string of allegations attributed to him in the News of the World, claiming that he was only repeating information he had read in the newspaper's original report last Sunday.
Hameed was the victim of an undercover video sting in this Sunday's paper, in which he is seen talking to a man, the undercover reporter, in Nottingham a few days after the end of the Test series.
Hameed says the man came to him claiming to be a representative of a global airline and wanted to talk about possible sponsorship deals. "I have never spoken to the NOTW and I haven't said anything like this," he told ESPNcricinfo. "I was only talking about what I had heard from the original NOTW reports anyway."
During the course of the video, available to view on the NOTW website, the reporter and Hameed discuss the fall-out of the controversy, the Sydney Test and Hameed's claim that a bookie approached him during the 2004 Champions Trophy in England.
At one point the reporter asks him, "These guys must talk about it among themselves, right, they must do it definitely? They say they did it in every match."
"Nearly," Hameed replies.
"Sure?" the reporter asks.
"God knows," Hameed says before alluding to what he has read. "This is what reports say, Scotland Yard has been after them for long."
In another bit, the reporter talks to Hameed about the Sydney Test in Australia, which Mazhar Majeed - the man at the centre of the allegations - claimed last week was fixed.
The reporter, having heard Hameed tell him that he was not associated with Majeed, asks him, "But man they did it in Australia as well, in Australia you didn't play?"
"No," says Hameed.
"You didn't play in Australia, even there they did something bad."
"In the Sydney Test, £1.8 million," says Hameed.
However, Hameed told ESPNcricinfo that the figure only came up from the NOTW itself. "That figure in the video of the Sydney Test, £1.8 million, I didn't just dream up that figure from nowhere, it was there in NOTW [it was actually 1.3 million]."
Talk then comes to Hameed's position within the side and he appears in the video to blame whatever is happening within the side on his own dropping from the team. "Of course why not? Because of these bad things I am out, I never got involved," he says. "If you sit here and say I am a bookie and that you have to fix the match tomorrow, now I've met lots of people like this in the past..."
"They approached you?" the reporter interrupts.
"Yah I refused," Hameed replies.
"Good, good," says the reporter.
"They offered me handsome money," Hameed continues. "I would've come to you in a Ferrari now. I mean there is enough so that your desires are fulfilled...buy a car, that is how much money they were giving."
"How much did they offer?" asks the reporter.
"Man, they've offered big big money. Up to £150,000," says Hameed. The newspaper claimed that this offer was made to Hameed during the 2004 Champions Trophy semi-final between Pakistan and West Indies, which Pakistan lost after choosing to bat first on a seaming pitch.
but Hameed told ESPNcricinfo he had not specified the semi-final. "I never talked about the Champions Trophy semi-final of 2004. I said that during that tournament someone had come up to me in a hotel and indicated he might want to do something like that and I had told him to get lost straight away. The guy [undercover reporter] asked me which Champions Trophy that was and I said the one in which we lost in the semis to West Indies. I did not mean that match specifically." Hameed will meet Ijaz Butt, chairman PCB, at the Pakistan High Commission in London on Sunday to explain his comments. ICC sources close to the investigation confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that they were unaware of any such approach made to Hameed, which would mean, if the allegations are true, the player himself would be in breach of the Anti-Corruption Code of Conduct for failing to follow the proper procedures.
Article 2.4.2 states it is an offence if a player fails "to disclose to the ACSU (without undue delay) full details of any approaches or invitations received by the Player or Player Support Personnel to engage in conduct that would amount to a breach of the Anti-Corruption Code."
Hameed was recalled to the Pakistan side after a gap of over two years and played in the last two Tests of the current series. He was not selected for the limited-overs series but chose to stay on in the UK for a few more days.
The allegation is one of a host of additional strands to the NOTW's coverage of the match-fixing scandal, including the suggestion that the ICC are investigating an unnamed fourth Pakistan player.
Also revealed in an eight-page special produced by the newspaper, they claim that Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, who have been questioned by police twice this week since the initial story broke last weekend, are facing 23 charges between them.
The paper also hit back at claims of Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK, that the players were set up by NOTW. The paper published details and dates of CCTV footage and text messages proving, what it claims to be meetings between the undercover reporter and Majeed before the Lord's Test.
A Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that no new arrests have been made in relation to the ongoing case.

Morgan, Yardy wins for england

Graeme Swann was once again England's star with the ball, as he produced a sharp-turning and incisive spell of 2 for 14 in four overs, to strangle Pakistan's run-rate in the middle of their innings and restrict them to a meagre total of 126 for 4 in the first Twenty20 in Cardiff. With Michael Yardy proving a similar handful with his left-arm darts, it was left to Umar Akmal and Shahid Afridi to haul Pakistan to a defendable total with a solid but unspectacular fifth-wicket stand of 38 in 4.5 overs.
winning the toss after a half-hour rain delay, in overcast conditions that matched the prevailing mood after a week of damaging and distracting newspaper revelations, Paul Collingwood chose to bowl first to keep his team on the right side of any potential Duckworth-Lewis calculations. He was rewarded with a diligent display that kept Pakistan's big-hitters very much in check throughout, and though three catches of varying degrees of difficulty were put down, England conceded just eight fours in the innings, no sixes (for the first time in Pakistan's T20 history), and a solitary extra in the 19th over.
Ryan Sidebottom, one of the key components of England's World Twenty20 triumph back in May, opened the innings with a loose over that was biffed for 12, but that was arguably the only moment that Pakistan were in command of their innings. Two balls later, Kamran Akmal heaved across the line for Tim Bresnan to make England's first breakthrough, and Pakistan struggled to regain the upper hand thereafter.
Playing in his second Twenty20 and his first for four years, Mohammad Yousuf played some extravagant lofted drives in a carefree 26 from 18 balls, but Swann made his now-habitual early impact, striking with his fifth delivery as Eoin Morgan pouched a lofted pull at midwicket. Two overs later, Shahzaib Hasan was dragged down the track and smartly stumped by Steven Davies, who has taken over from Michael Lumb at the top of the order, and has taken the gloves off Craig Kieswetter to boot.
With extravagant turn on offer right from the start of the spinners' spell, Yardy once again put in an admirable spell, and was rewarded with a sharp caught-and-bowled to end a frenetic but uneffective innings from Fawad Alam, who groped and prodded to 20 from 29 balls, but never looked likely to dominate the bowling. Afridi was much more effective in his 16 from 14 balls, even though he benefitted from two lives in a single over from Stuart Broad - the second of which was a dolly to Luke Wright, running in from the long-on boundary. Abdul Razzaq, with 49 sixes in his Twenty20 international career, didn't make it to the middle.
This is England's first Twenty20 international since their memorable victory over Australia in Barbados back in May, but with some 4000 tickets still unsold, and more gaps in the stands expected on Tuesday in the wake of a turbulent week, it was not quite the homecoming they might have envisaged. Many of those who have turned up have done so on sufferance, as one banner succinctly put: "I'm only here because I bought my ticket two months ago."
Paul Collingwood, however, was prepared to put on a good show, regardless. "It's about getting back on the park, playing cricket and putting some smiles on people's faces," he said. England made two changes to the side that won the World Twenty20, with Davies taking over from Lumb, and Ravi Bopara slotting in at No. 3 in place of the out-of-form Kevin Pietersen.
Pakistan, meanwhile, have been forced to ring the changes, with three of their key men suspended by the ICC pending an investigation by the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit. With Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir both missing, Shoaib Akhtar and Wahab Riaz take over the seam bowling duties, alongside Umar Gul.

England 1 Craig Kieswetter, 2 Steven Davies (wk), 3 Ravi Bopara, 4 Paul Collingwood (capt), 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Michael Yardy, 7 Luke Wright, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Graeme Swann, 11 Ryan Sidebottom.
Pakistan 1 Shahzaib Hasan, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Mohammad Yousuf, 4 Umar Akmal, 5 Fawad Alam, 6 Shahid Afridi (capt), 7 Abdul Razzaq, 8 Umar Gul, 9 Wahab Riaz, 10 Shoaib Akhtar, 11 Saeed Ajmal

British police fail to find any concrete evidence against Pakistani cricket players

LONDON: The Scotland Yard team, investigating the recent match fixing charges against Pakistani cricket team players in connection with match fixing, has also finally cleared pace bowler Muhammad Asif of any charges.
After failing to find any credible charges of match fixing against Pakistani team cricketers, it is expected that the investigations would finally be dropped, and charged players exonerated from any charges of match fixing. Besides, the charged cricket players have been released by British police (even) without any warnings.

Sources have disclosed that the notorious bookmaker Mazhar Majeed used to work as booking agent for team captain Salman Butt, as he had introduced Salman Butt to various commercial concerns, to act as a commercial model to promote various products.

Sources also disclosed that British police also found UKL 34,000 from Salman Butt’s room; out of these UKL 24,000 were commercials’ appearance fees, Mazhar Majeed had arranged for opener batsman Salman Butt, while remaining UKL 10,000 were Salman Butt’s daily allowances.

Sources said that all Pakistani cricket players had volunteered for their statements, after which the investigations of British police were near completion.

However the trials and tribulations of these charged Pakistani cricket players are not yet over, as they are proverbially out of frying pan into the fire, since they would have to face disciplinary actions of ICC (International Cricket Council), followed by another round by disciplinary committees of Pakistan Cricket Board.

The charged cricket players would be given full opportunity to deliberate their alibis, after which (any) final decision regarding the future of these players would be taken

Hameed: They're doing it 'almost every match'

The News of the World has issued further match-fixing allegations against Pakistan, with Test opener Yasir Hameed reportedly admitting some of his team-mates were involved in throwing games.

The newspaper rocked the cricket world with their spot-fixing claims last weekend - with Salman Butt,Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir now the subject of police and ICC investigations.

They have now followed up with an interview with Hameed, who played in the fourth Test at The Oval.

He is quoted as saying: "They've been caught. Only the ones that get caught are branded crooks.

"They were doing it (fixing) in almost every match. God knows what they were up to. Scotland Yard was after them for ages.

"It makes me angry because I'm playing my best and they are trying to lose."
The full details of the latest claims will be released over the course of the night, but the paper also claim that the ICC are currently investigating a fourth - as yet unnamed - Pakistan player.
Sunday's edition will also carry allegations that investigators recovered at least £10,000 of marked bank notes in Butt's hotel room

Players didn't know Majeed was a book-maker: PCB's legal adviser

LONDON: PCB's Legal Adviser Tafazzul Rizvi told Geo News that the players have said that the money recovered from them was given to them on account of sponsorship contracts that they had signed with different commercial organisations.

The players have accepted that they received money from Mazhar Majeed.

The players also stated that Mazhar Majeed was working as their agent to secure sponsorship deals and they did not know that he was a book-maker.

"The players also showed their written contracts for these sponsorship deals to the police," Rizvi pointed out.
"The players have contested the allegation and also volunteered themselves for police investigations," the legal adviser said.
He also said that the players have been suspended temporarily and they have to submit replies individually.