The story of Pakistan’s tour of England in the summer of 2010 would have made good reading as a thriller. Intrigue, infamy, cash in suitcases, back-stabbing, even sex, thanks to Veena Malik, the former girlfriend of Asif having her say, and, finally, courtroom drama.
Butt, the Pakistan captain, Asif and Amir, the two fast bowlers, and Mazhar Majeed, the fixer, were each sentenced to prison for their part in bowling no-balls to order in the fourth Test at Lord’s in August of that year. The four men, who all blamed one another for the crime, had been charged with conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat at gambling.
It was considered a disastrous day for cricket. It was, however, considered a great day for investigative journalism.
Hidden cameras showed Majeed talking to undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood, perhaps best known as the ‘Fake Sheik’.
Majeed was seen to propose three no-balls during the Lord’s Test, two to be bowled by Amir and one by Asif. For this information he was paid £150,000.
‘Caught!’ screamed the NotW headline under a ‘world exclusive’ banner. ‘Match-fixer pockets £150k as he rigs the England Test at Lord’s’. And ‘We expose betting scandal that will rock cricket’.
Butt received two years and six months, Asif one year, Amir six months and Majeed two years and eight months. The story that had everything was a bestseller. But did it really have everything? The answer is, unquestionably, no.
In the backstreets of every Indian city, in outbuildings or bedrooms of crumbling apartments, never did a bookmaker cry ‘souda fok!’ - ‘all bets are off, it’s a fix’. In other words, there was no betting scam. There was no spot-fix.
It is the great irony of this tale. A story purported to be the latest in a litany of match-fixing scandals in the sport was far removed from the illegal Indian market where the ‘fix’ supposedly had its roots.
‘It seemed clear to me they that had been scammed,’ an Indian bookmaking contact told me. Recordings by the newspaper showing Majeed, a Croydon-based businessman, predicting when the no-balls were to be bowled would appear proof of match-fixing or spot-fixing to the layman.
But to anyone with a semblance of betting knowledge it was anything but. The NotW spent £150,000 and failed to get a bet on. The money paid was for Majeed to prove that he could control the Pakistan players.
Amid the media storm, not once was the question asked: if the newspaper had wanted to make money betting on the Indian market on those no-balls, could it have done so?
Everyone in the Indian book-making world I have spoken to has confirmed it is not possible to bet on the timing of a no-ball.
Yet it was convenient for the media to ignore this point. It would have spoiled the story. The illegal Indian market is a monster. It is vast. It is unregulated. But it is structured and it is certainly not complacent.
‘Do you think we’re fools?’ one Indian bookie told me. ‘If someone says they want this no-ball bet for big monies and I’m Ladbrokes, I tell them to go away. No bookmaker in the world takes this bet.’
The reason would be that they suspected you had inside information. And it is no different in India.
You could argue that in the case of the Pakistan ‘spot-fixing’, it is irrelevant that one would not have been able to bet on a no-ball. The three Pakistan players were shown to be guilty of corrupt practices. They were cheating the game, their team-mates and the spectators.
And you would be absolutely right, but only if the court they were being tried in and the judge who would sentence them were aware that a no-ball is not a betting opportunity in India.
The court was not aware. The judge was not aware. This much is clear from the erroneous sentencing remarks by the Hon Mr Justice Cooke: ‘Bets could be placed on these no-balls in unlawful markets, mostly abroad, based on inside advance knowledge of what was going to happen...
Individuals in India were making £40,000–£50,000 on each identified no-ball. On three no-balls, therefore, the bookmakers stood to lose £150,000 on each bet by a cheating punter.’
Butt, Asif, Amir and Majeed went to prison for charges that included ‘conspiracy to cheat at gambling’. If there was no bet placed, if there was no opportunity to even place that bet and therefore no one was defrauded, can anyone be guilty of such a charge?
Mr Justice Cook said the NotW had ‘got what they bargained for’. Yet without their money, those no-balls would not have been bowled.
Keen to reassure his ‘sponsor’ that a third no-ball would still be delivered, Majeed rang the journalist that evening.
He told him that Amir would bowl a no-ball off the third ball of his third full over as he still had three balls to bowl the next morning following the disruption. Majeed confirmed this with Amir via text message.
However, for an unknown reason, Majeed attempted to get the ‘fix’ called off. He phoned the journalist, telling him that there ‘was no point doing the third now’. It is this volte-face that is crucial in exposing Majeed’s inexperience.
Alarmed at the prospect of his scoop losing some lustre, the journalist thinks quickly and tells Majeed that he must go through with the third no-ball because his ‘syndicate’ has already placed the bets.
This is important.
The ‘syndicate’ is claiming to have placed wagers on the timing of no-balls before the match had started. ‘So you can place money on the no-balls then?’ Majeed asks. The journalist says yes. ‘What sort of monies?’ says a surprised Majeed. This is the partially-sighted leading the blind.
If Majeed had been the shrewd, shady operator that he claimed to be - and the NotW had been only too willing to enhance this ‘reputation’ - then he would have immediately recognised that the journalist was lying.
Indeed, Majeed’s ignorance is stupefying. For a start he should have known that it was not possible for the syndicate to place these bets on a market that did not exist.
Secondly, a fixer well-connected to the Indian industry would have known that, even if such a market did exist, it would have been out of the question to have already placed such a wager before the Test match had started, as the reporter said his punters had done.
Someone asking for odds for a no-ball from a bowler’s third ball off his third full over on the second day would have been laughed at by any bookmaker in India - or anywhere else on the planet.
This article was first published in the Daily Mail on November 11 2012 and was extracted from Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: a journey to the heart of cricket's underworld
