LONDON: As one of cricket's ugliest scandals threatened to bring more players under the fixing cloud, former Pakistan captain Salman Butt and pace bowler Mohammad Asif became the first cricketers ever to be convicted for fixing a part of a match.
A 12-man jury at London's Southwark Crown Court found the duo guilty of conspiracy to cheat and conspiring to accept corrupt payments during a Pakistan-England Test match at Lord's last year. The verdict came on a day when Butt's wife Gul gave birth to a son in Lahore.
Meanwhile, reports said the ICC's anti-corruption unit was launching a fresh investigation into Pakistan's tour of England last year. It is suspected that spot-fixing took place in other matches of the tour and that more players could come under scrutiny.
It was also revealed that Mohammad Aamer, the third cricketer named in the episode that involved delivering no-balls on demand during the match, had pleaded guilty to both the charges on September 16. Reporting restrictions under the Britain's laws meant Aamer's plea was not made public so as not to influence the jury ruling on the other two players.
While the jury unanimously convicted Butt and Asif for cheating, on the second charge of accepting illegal payments, both were separately found guilty by a 10-2 majority. The two players, along with Aamer, face up to seven years in prison or a fine.
Butt and Asif - wearing suits without ties - were emotionless in the dock as the verdicts were revealed, following three days of discussions by the jury. It was the first time that anyone had been convicted under Britain's new Gambling Act, which came into force in 2005.
During the 20-day trial, prosecutors alleged that the two had plotted to deliberately bowl no-balls in a Test match between Pakistan and England last year. The duo was accused after a sting operation by the News of the World newspaper taped a conversation with a players' agent, Mazhar Majeed, in which he claimed he could arrange for Pakistani players to fix matches for money.
The court heard that significant sums of money are made by rigging games or elements of matches for illegal betting syndicates.
A journalist with the News of the World approached Majeed in August last year posing as a wealthy Indian businessman seeking international cricketers for a tournament. Majeed claimed he had been fixing matches for two and a half years, that he had seven players from the Pakistani team cooperating with him and that he had made "masses and masses of money". The agent was clandestinely filmed accepting £150,000 in cash from the journalist as part of a "spot-fixing" arrangement.
The prosecution argued that Butt and Asif conspired with Majeed and Pakistani fast bowler Mohammad Aamer to send down three pre-planned no-balls during the Test. Butt and Asif pleaded that while Majeed had asked them to get involved in fixing, they had refused to do so. They also maintained they were unaware of any alleged understanding to bowl pre-determined no-balls.
Asif was at the time of the offence the second best bowler in Tests in the International Cricket Council rankings.
