Pakistan High Commissioner attack ICC

Pakistan High Commissioner Wajid S Hassan on Friday attacked the International Cricket Council (ICC) saying that the three accused players were “innocent” and also gave a new twist to the spot-fixing scandal by announcing that Indian bookmakers were involved in the whole murky episode.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme Hasan said: “They (the ICC) have done the wrong thing. When there’s a live police inquiry, this takes precedence over both the ICC, civil or regulatory investigations and any disciplinary investigations.

He went on to add that all these three players were absolutely innocent.

“They were not involved, they have been taken for a ride and the agent ( Mazhar Majeed) was the culprit, in the sense that he was responsible for defrauding some Asian bookies,” Hassan said.

“The British press says Asian but if they were from Pakistan they (British media) would have called Pakistanis, which means some Indian bookies were involved in it. This Majeed allegedly defrauded these Indian bookies and so the newspaper investigated this sort of sting operation through their sources here,” he told a TV cannel.

Hassan’s statement comes after the ICC charged the three players — Test captain Salman Butt and pacers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer — with corruption offences and provisionally suspended them from all forms of the game pending a decision on the charges.

Hasan said the trio had opted out.

“They are extremely disturbed with what has happened in the past one week. They have maintained that they are innocent and on account of the mental torture that has hugely affected them, they are not in the right frame of mind to play any further,” Hassan had said.

“Therefore, they have requested the Pakistan Cricket Board not to consider them for the rest of the matches until their names are cleared,” he added.