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 a bit of sex thanks to Veena Malik the buxom former girlfriend of Mohammad Asif having her say, and finally court-room drama. Salman Butt, the Pakistan captain, Asif and Mohammad 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. Aftab Jafferjee, QC for the prosecution, said: “This case reveals a depressing tale of rampant corruption at the heart of international cricket”. He added that the extent of fraud made it hard for spectators to watch matches “without a sense of disquiet”. It was, however, considered a great day for investigative journalism. The Pakistan cricketers and Majeed, who claimed to be their agent, had been exposed by a News of the World reporter. Hidden cameras showed Majeed talking to an undercover journalist called Mazher Mahmood, perhaps best known as the ‘Fake Sheikh’ who had a habit of embarrassing public figures, including the former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, in sting operations.
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. The video shows Majeed taking bundles of cash from a suitcase and counting it, rifling the £50 notes through his fingers. Majeed said that Butt would do his bidding. Amir, just 18 at the time, bowled two no-balls, one by nine inches and the other by 12 inches. These were huge and conspicuous, betraying his inexperience – and possibly his fear. Asif, a veteran of Test cricket since 2005 and with a bowling action as smooth as honey falling from a spoon, stepped over the line by a fraction.
When it became clear that the News of the World had their men by the throat, Colin Myler, the newspaper’s editor, summoned the cricket correspondent Sam Peters, and Richie Benaud, a columnist of almost 54 years, to the Wapping offices.
“Tomorrow, gentleman,” Myler said. “The News of the World is going to break the biggest story in its history”.
“Caught!” screamed the headline under a “world exclusive” banner. “Match-fixer pockets £150k as he rigs the England Test at Lord’s”. And also “We expose betting scandal that will rock cricket”.
Indeed, cricket was unsteady on its feet for many months afterwards and it is arguable that it had still not righted itself when jail terms were handed down to the four fixers. Butt received two years and six months, Asif one year, Amir six months and Majeed two years and eight months. Myler was right. The story that had everything was a best-seller.
But did it really have everything? The answer is, unquestionably, no. In the backstreets of every Indian city from Nimbahera to Mumbai, in outbuildings or bedrooms of crumbling apartments, from Vinay to Parthiv, never above the jabber of the bhao line operator and the echo of punters placing bets, did a bookmaker cry “souda fok!” – all bets are off, it’s a fix – when Amir or Asif bowled those no-balls. When they overstepped the line at Lord’s to spark the crisis that the ICC called the biggest scandal to hit the sport since the Hansie Cronje affair, there was no meltdown by India’s bookmakers. There was no panic on the streets of Lucknow. 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, to be placed on a par with the Cronje crime and, for the first time, see cricketers convicted in a court of law, was far from removed from the illegal Indian market where the ‘fix’ supposedly had its roots.
“Maybe the monies had gone elsewhere,” Parthiv said. “But having read the News of the World report, it seemed clear to me they had been scammed.”
Recordings by the newspaper showing Mazhar Majeed, a Croydon-based businessman, predicting when the no-balls would 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 News of the World 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? We know the answer to this. Parthiv, Vinay and Rattan Mehta, the Delhi punter of renowned infamy, have each confirmed that it is not possible to bet on the timing of a no-ball. Dheeraj Dixit, our ‘fixer’ friend from the suburbs of Delhi, and MA Ganapathy, the author of the CBI report in match-fixing published in 2000, did the same.
Yet it was convenient for the media to ignore this point. It would have spoiled the story otherwise. Today if you type into the internet search engine Google ‘Pakistan Lord’s Betting Scam’, 1,840,000 results are returned, including stories from the BBC, Daily Telegraph, Sky – organisations one might consider bastions of accurate, diligent journalism. Instead, it was preferable to portray Indian bookmakers as crafty, money-grabbing crime lords who would not raise so much as an eyebrow if someone attempted to place a bet on a no-ball. The contradiction is glaring. The fallacy laughable.
The illegal Indian market is a monster. It is vast. It is unregulated. But it is structured and it is certainly not complacent. Remember that there are only four main markets available to gamblers in India and all bookmakers sign up for those odds provided by the syndicates.
“Do you think we’re fools?” Vinay said to me. “If someone says they want this no-ball bet for big monies I’m Ladbrokes in London. I tell them to go away. No bookmaker in the world takes this bet.”
One does not need to be connected to Indian bookmakers to understand this. It is common sense. If you, the reader, were to walk into any betting shop on the high street and ask for £1,000 on an outcome as specific as a no-ball in a Test match, the cashier would say “wait a minute, please” and disappear to make a telephone call to head office. Upon his or her return she would tell you that they could not accept the wager. “It’s not our policy”, would be the bluff. The real reason would be that they suspected you had inside information. It is no different in India.
But let us suspend reality for a moment and consider a fantasy world where there had been a betting market for the News of the World journalist to exploit; to get his bet on and ensure that his story truly was a betting scam. How hard would it have been? The phrase “needle in a haystack” is apt.
The News of the World would have had to have found a multitude of Indian bookmakers, operating outside of the syndicate system. These are the small-time bookies Vinay spoke of. The ones who accept wagers of no more than 25,000 rupees (£306) on the regular match odds, brackets, innings runs and lunchtime favourite markets but also occasionally on ‘who will win the toss’, how many runs Tendulkar will score. Not, however, no-balls to be bowled at a specific time.
They are a discordant bunch. They are not structured. They are not connected to one another. And, most importantly, they do not have the safety net of the syndicate if their losses get too great. They are far less likely than the high-street bookmaker to take ‘requested’ wagers.
With that in mind, for the News of the World to break even from their £150,000 outlay, the minimum a fixer would expect, they would have had to seek out hundreds of these small-timers, who sometimes operate from the shop floor of factories, paying commission to the owner for a pitch to tout their wares.
To be precise, 490 separate wagers would have needed to be placed at the maximum bet of 25,000 rupees. And that was if the bookmaker would offer odds of even money – unlikely given that they were being approached by gamblers they had not previously met, and certainly did not trust, on a market they would never have chalked up. Frankly, it would have been nigh on impossible for anyone on the Indian system to have made money out of those no-balls being bowled at Lord’s.
In this example, the notion that one is able to fix weird and wonderful elements of cricket matches is once again exposed. Substitute the no-ball ‘spot-fix’ for a wide, a boundary being hit, a fielder being placed in a peculiar position, a bowler to open at a particular end. It is unfeasible, just as Vinay said. The minutiae of inside information is used to manipulate markets in the favour of the syndicate, bookmaker or punter, not to win specific bets.
A no-ball in a Twenty20 match adds to the batting team’s total and offers the batsman a free hit. One cannot bet on that no-ball occurring but the syndicate, bookmaker or punter can manipulate the odds in his favour for, say, a bracket because he knows that runs will be scored. It is a potentially game-changing event as thereis a maximum of 120 legal balls in a Twenty20 innings. Its importance in terms of inside information is significant. A no-ball in a Test match does not have the same impact, or even close. In one day of play in a Test match there are at least 540 legal balls. The runs quote for a bracket would not move the market sufficiently enough to be worth manipulating. It is not a game-changing event. A run has been scored. So what?
One 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 being bowled. Pakistan were shown to be guilty of corrupt practices. They were cheating the game, their team-mates and the spectators. And one would be absolutely right, but only if the court they were being tried in and the judge that would sentence them was 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 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.”
Mr Justice Cooke was apparently convinced that there was an opportunity to wager by evidence given by the prosecution’s first witness: Ravi Sawani, the former general manager of the ACSU. He told the court it is possible to bet on a no-ball. However, and to widespread astonishment, he also admitted he did not know what a bracket was.
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 really be guilty of such a charge?
The Gambling Act of 2005 defines ‘conspiracy to cheat at gambling’ as the following:
“1 A person commits an offence if he —
(a) cheats at gambling, or
(b) does anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) it is immaterial whether a person who cheats—
(a) improves his chances of winning anything, or
(b) wins anything.
(3) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) cheating at gambling may, in particular, consist of actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with—
(a) the process by which gambling is conducted, or
(b) a real or virtual game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates.”
It would be difficult to consider the conviction of the four men under this charge as robust simply because of the absence of an opportunity to bet on a no-ball, the earthquake that no one heard or felt. Butt, Asif, Amir or Majeed could not have been “cheats at gambling” or done “anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling” if there was no method to do either. That they could have been considered aware that they were “enabling or assisting” is the moot point perhaps. In the case of Amir, he has since claimed he was unaware that he was asked to bowl no-balls for betting purposes, instead blaming Majeed and Butt for tricking him into thinking his career would be under threat if he did not do as his captain told him.
So what the News of the World sting revealed was not spot-fixing but corrupt practices within the Pakistan team. That was the justification for the scoop, although there has since a lingering level of discomfort among journalists about the way it was conducted. Clearly it was a set-up, a classic agent provocateur – a person associated with individuals suspected of wrongdoing with the purpose of inciting them to commit acts that will make them liable to punishment. It is interesting to note that the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Yasir Hameed, the Pakistan batsman, on a similar ‘sting’ operation by the News of the World in relation to the spot-fixing scandal. Hameed argued that his privacy was breached by hidden cameras and recording equipment when he was speaking to the ‘Fake Sheikh’ about corruption in the Pakistan team.
Mr Justice Cook said the News of the World had “got what they bargained for”. He could have said that the News of the World were the corruptors – and to all intents and purposes that is exactly what they were. Without their money, those no-balls would not have been bowled.
Nor would the no-balls have been bowled if Mazhar Majeed was the fixing ‘kingpin’ as he was portrayed. The ‘sting’ would surely have been drawn from the News of the World if Majeed was indeed the experienced fixer that he claimed to be. In ‘sales’ chatter to impress the undercover journalist, Majeed boasted of his knowledge and expertise in the field:
““It’s been happening for centuries. It’s been happening for years. Wasim [Akram], Waqar [Younis, who was the coach of the Pakistan team during that series against England], Ijaz Ahmed, Moin Khan – they all did it.
““I’ve been doing this with the Pakistani team now for about two-and-a-half years, and we’ve made masses and masses of money. You can make absolute millions.
“We are working towards next month. It is going to be big. I will give you an exact script of how it is going to happen. We’ve got one result already planned and that is coming up in the next three and a half weeks. Pakistan will lose.”
Majeed said that it would cost between £50,000 and £80,000 for information for a bracket, £400,000 to fix a result of a Twenty20 match, £450,000 for a one-day international and £1 million to fix a Test match. There was no mention of how much a no-ball would cost because Majeed, correctly, did not believe one could bet on such an outcome. Yet when the News of the World reporter was talking about placing bets on no-balls, Majeed, instead of hearing alarm bells ringing in his head, heard the shrill of the cash register. Had money not been on his mind, he might have recognised he was being scammed.
Instead he was focused on providing the no-balls that had been demanded, believing that if he could prove that Pakistan players were under his control, there would be more money to come. When Majeed met the journalist at the Copthorne Tara Hotel on August 25, the evening before the Lord’s Test match, it was, in fact, the fifth time they had convened. Majeed was sure that Butt, Amir and Asif would do as he said. He was unequivocal where in the past he had been sketchy about details discussed from a previous Test at The Oval.
“I’m going to give you three no-balls, okay, right, to prove to you firstly that this is what is happening. No-balls are the easiest and they’re the clearest. There’s no signal, nothing. These three are definitely happening.”
Majeed was true to his word. Amir bowled a no-ball the next day from the third ball of the third over and Asif overstepped on the sixth ball of the tenth over. The third was not delivered because the poor weather which had delayed the start until 1.40pm and play was cut short with only 12.3 overs possible.
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.
There can be no doubt that an experienced fixer would know that it is not possible to bet on a no-ball. If Majeed had been the shrewd, shady operator that he claimed to be, and the News of the World 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 which 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. All odds pre-match are run by the Jayanti Malad syndicate and they only offer match odds, team innings runs and lunch favourite. For someone to try to bet on a no-ball before a match had started would be unthinkable.
So why did Majeed not realise that his game was up? The most likely explanation is that he was desperate for the money. His Bluesky firm, which had contracts with local councils to renovate derelict houses, was shown at the time of the trial by Companies House to have five County Court judgements against it. It also had unpaid bills of more than £74,000. Two more of Majeed’s companies were the subject of applications to strike off, a third was in liquidation, a fourth was in receivership and a fifth, also in liquidation, owed £596,000. The court was also told that, at the time of his arrest, police had found Majeed held 30 bank accounts showing total arrears of £704,000. These are not the trappings of a man who boasted about making “masses and masses of money”.
It is possible that Majeed was an aspirant fixer, which would go some way to explain the child-like delight that Amir described when he arrived in his hotel room at the Marriott in Swiss Cottage “looking like he had hit the jackpot, he was so happy” to give the young bowler £1,500. “He said. ‘You are my younger brother’ and he was buzzing with excitement.” One would have thought a veteran fixer would have recognised this as ‘business as usual’.
There are other clues to suggest that Majeed was an unproven operator in the field. For a start, there was the failed fix in The Oval Test that summer. Majeed had met with the News of the World reporter for the first time on August 16 at the Park Lane hotel, two days before the start of that match. The two parties were feeling each other out, establishing one another’s authenticity. Perhaps they were fooling each other.
It was not until their second meeting two days later that the discussion turned to fixing. They met at the Bombay Brasserie in London on the Gloucester Road. The journalist wanted no-balls to be bowled “so that our boys have got an indication this is on. Then they’ll invest big.” Majeed agreed and, ever the showman, added “I’ll give you two if you want.” When the pair met for a third time, on this occasion at a restaurant on the Edgware Road, Majeed confirmed a fix was on after he was paid £10,000:
“Alright, just to show you that it’s real, I’m going to show you two no-balls tomorrow… I’ll call you on another number, yeah, and I’ll call you about 8.30 in the morning and I’ll give you the two balls they’re going to do it on.”
Of course, it was not on. Majeed failed to give any details of when the no-balls would be bowled and by whom, suggesting that he was not as capable of influencing players as he said he was. Majeed started to stall for more time. He said the no-balls would not be bowled at The Oval on the third day because Waqar Younis, the coach, had warned the team about the number of no-balls on the opening day of the Test. Waqar, giving testimony to the ICC tribunal about the case, denied he gave such a teamtalk. Majeed then said there could be not be a no-ball the next day either because Saeed Ajmal, the spin bowler, was bowling and he was not under his influence.
In an attempt to appease the journalist, Majeed told him that he had agreed with Butt that the captain would play out a maiden in the first over on August 21 with the captain tapping with his bat the middle of the wicket after the second ball he had faced to confirm. Butt did not tap the pitch and there was no maiden.
Could it have been that Majeed was frantically trying to buy time to get players onside? Butt, who Majeed had described as a “million per cent” trustworthy, most likely was close to the businessman – he had made personal appearances to promote his faltering property firm and during The Oval Test was scheduled to open an ice cream parlour in Tooting that Majeed had a stake in – but it would appear doubtful he could trust anyone else in the Pakistan side.
At this stage the News of the World must have thought they had a dud. “He [Butt] didn’t do it [the maiden],” the journalist told Majeed. “What if we give you £150,000 and he doesn’t do it and then we put the big money on and it’s all over?”
And then, pertinently: “They don’t listen to you; they don’t take your orders.”
Majeed replied: “OK, boss. Just remember you’re telling me that they don’t listen to me, right? I’ve been in this game a long time and remember you’re the one who contacted me.”
Wounded by this criticism and worried he was about to be found out by the ‘syndicate’ for being a fraud (oh, the irony), a probably desperate Majeed hit upon a plan. With Butt’s help he would target the young naïf Amir and Asif, who came with a disreputable reputation as long as his bowling arm.
Amir, who spoke for the first time in-depth of the ordeal in March 2012, claimed that Majeed had blackmailed him to bowl the no-balls at Lord’s. On the eve of the Lord’s Test Amir received a telephone call from Majeed asking him to meet in the car park of the team hotel. They met in Majeed’s car.
“All of a sudden it was as if someone launched an attack,” Amir said. “He said to me, ‘You’re in big trouble, bro. You’re trapped and your career is at stake.’”
Majeed told him that the ICC’s ACSU had information that Amir had been talking about spot-fixing with a man called Ali, who the bowler knew as a ‘businessman’ he had met for the first time in Dubai in 2009. Text messages between the two showed that Ali was at the least trying to get Amir to spot-fix for him. One, on the eve of The Oval Test, from Ali to Amir read: “So in the first three bowl whatever you like and in the last two do 8 runs?”
There is no evidence that Amir fixed a bracket for Ali in that Test match and all communication between the two had stopped after that game. Majeed is likely to have known about Amir’s relationship with Ali because Butt had told the young tyro to stay away from Ali. Amir had told his captain that Ali had been “bugging” him.
“He [Majeed] said he could help me out of my difficulties but that I had to do a favour for him in return,” Amir said. “I asked him: ‘What favour?’ That’s when he mentioned the two no-balls.
“I realise now that nobody is more stupid than me, that I could not see how ridiculous it was that on the one hand he should be telling me that I was in trouble with the ICC and on the other that I should bowl him two no-balls. But I was panicking and I had lost the ability to comprehend what was going on. After about five minutes, Salman joined us and he sat in the back seat, leaning over between the two front seats, just listening. He didn’t say anything.
“I told him that it was impossible because my feet were always behind the line, that it was a wrong thing to do and that I was scared. He told me not to worry and to practise bowling them at Lord’s during the practice sessions before the match. He said not to worry because Salman would be with me and would help me. I got out of the car and Salman, who still hadn’t said anything at this point, stayed behind. I was worried now and went and sat on the team bus to go to practice, worrying about what I was to do.”
Asif needed manipulating too but he was too wily a campaigner to fall for such a simple trick as blackmail. Asif, it is understood, was known to the ACSU as an unreliable character. In 2006 he had been banned for doping before having his suspension overturned on appeal. He had also been detained in Dubai under the suspicion of carrying drugs and he had tested positive for a banned substance when playing in the IPL.
In court Majeed said via his barrister that he had paid £65,000 to Asif to “keep him loyal” and prevent him from joining rival fixing rackets, involved elsewhere within the team. This admission backs up the belief of Dheeraj Dixit, Asif’s former friend and the ‘fixer’ from Delhi, that Majeed had little control over the Pakistan players and that he had to keep paying out extra funds to try to prevent them from fixing with rival factions.
So we have picture of Majeed as financially broken, bungling and desperate. Someone who would blackmail an 18-year-old bowler considered the golden boy of Pakistan cricket into cheating, threatening him that his career was on the line. And then pay him a measly £1,500 for the deal. Asif, the polar opposite of Amir, and apparently a gun for hire, netted a handsome sum. Mr Justice Cooke said of Asif “it is hard to see how this could be an isolated occurrence for you.”
Justice Cooke was, however, convinced that Majeed and Butt were perceptive designers in the fixing world. He blamed them for corrupting Amir, who he described as “unsophisticated, uneducated, impressionable”.
He also told Majeed that he was not persuaded that the News of the World sting was the “tip of an iceberg” but pointed to evidence, outside of the boasts and bluster to the newspaper’s journalist, that suggested Majeed had been involved in fixing prior to the Lord’s Test. “It appears that corruption may have been more widespread than the defendants here before me and may have permeated the team in earlier days,” Justice Cooke said.
This is an extract from BookieGamblerFixerSpy: a journey to the heart of cricket's underworld. Buy the book here.
It was considered a disastrous day for cricket. Aftab Jafferjee, QC for the prosecution, said: “This case reveals a depressing tale of rampant corruption at the heart of international cricket”. He added that the extent of fraud made it hard for spectators to watch matches “without a sense of disquiet”. It was, however, considered a great day for investigative journalism. The Pakistan cricketers and Majeed, who claimed to be their agent, had been exposed by a News of the World reporter. Hidden cameras showed Majeed talking to an undercover journalist called Mazher Mahmood, perhaps best known as the ‘Fake Sheikh’ who had a habit of embarrassing public figures, including the former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, in sting operations.
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. The video shows Majeed taking bundles of cash from a suitcase and counting it, rifling the £50 notes through his fingers. Majeed said that Butt would do his bidding. Amir, just 18 at the time, bowled two no-balls, one by nine inches and the other by 12 inches. These were huge and conspicuous, betraying his inexperience – and possibly his fear. Asif, a veteran of Test cricket since 2005 and with a bowling action as smooth as honey falling from a spoon, stepped over the line by a fraction.
When it became clear that the News of the World had their men by the throat, Colin Myler, the newspaper’s editor, summoned the cricket correspondent Sam Peters, and Richie Benaud, a columnist of almost 54 years, to the Wapping offices.
“Tomorrow, gentleman,” Myler said. “The News of the World is going to break the biggest story in its history”.
“Caught!” screamed the headline under a “world exclusive” banner. “Match-fixer pockets £150k as he rigs the England Test at Lord’s”. And also “We expose betting scandal that will rock cricket”.
Indeed, cricket was unsteady on its feet for many months afterwards and it is arguable that it had still not righted itself when jail terms were handed down to the four fixers. Butt received two years and six months, Asif one year, Amir six months and Majeed two years and eight months. Myler was right. The story that had everything was a best-seller.
But did it really have everything? The answer is, unquestionably, no. In the backstreets of every Indian city from Nimbahera to Mumbai, in outbuildings or bedrooms of crumbling apartments, from Vinay to Parthiv, never above the jabber of the bhao line operator and the echo of punters placing bets, did a bookmaker cry “souda fok!” – all bets are off, it’s a fix – when Amir or Asif bowled those no-balls. When they overstepped the line at Lord’s to spark the crisis that the ICC called the biggest scandal to hit the sport since the Hansie Cronje affair, there was no meltdown by India’s bookmakers. There was no panic on the streets of Lucknow. 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, to be placed on a par with the Cronje crime and, for the first time, see cricketers convicted in a court of law, was far from removed from the illegal Indian market where the ‘fix’ supposedly had its roots.
“Maybe the monies had gone elsewhere,” Parthiv said. “But having read the News of the World report, it seemed clear to me they had been scammed.”
Recordings by the newspaper showing Mazhar Majeed, a Croydon-based businessman, predicting when the no-balls would 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 News of the World 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? We know the answer to this. Parthiv, Vinay and Rattan Mehta, the Delhi punter of renowned infamy, have each confirmed that it is not possible to bet on the timing of a no-ball. Dheeraj Dixit, our ‘fixer’ friend from the suburbs of Delhi, and MA Ganapathy, the author of the CBI report in match-fixing published in 2000, did the same.
Yet it was convenient for the media to ignore this point. It would have spoiled the story otherwise. Today if you type into the internet search engine Google ‘Pakistan Lord’s Betting Scam’, 1,840,000 results are returned, including stories from the BBC, Daily Telegraph, Sky – organisations one might consider bastions of accurate, diligent journalism. Instead, it was preferable to portray Indian bookmakers as crafty, money-grabbing crime lords who would not raise so much as an eyebrow if someone attempted to place a bet on a no-ball. The contradiction is glaring. The fallacy laughable.
The illegal Indian market is a monster. It is vast. It is unregulated. But it is structured and it is certainly not complacent. Remember that there are only four main markets available to gamblers in India and all bookmakers sign up for those odds provided by the syndicates.
“Do you think we’re fools?” Vinay said to me. “If someone says they want this no-ball bet for big monies I’m Ladbrokes in London. I tell them to go away. No bookmaker in the world takes this bet.”
One does not need to be connected to Indian bookmakers to understand this. It is common sense. If you, the reader, were to walk into any betting shop on the high street and ask for £1,000 on an outcome as specific as a no-ball in a Test match, the cashier would say “wait a minute, please” and disappear to make a telephone call to head office. Upon his or her return she would tell you that they could not accept the wager. “It’s not our policy”, would be the bluff. The real reason would be that they suspected you had inside information. It is no different in India.
But let us suspend reality for a moment and consider a fantasy world where there had been a betting market for the News of the World journalist to exploit; to get his bet on and ensure that his story truly was a betting scam. How hard would it have been? The phrase “needle in a haystack” is apt.
The News of the World would have had to have found a multitude of Indian bookmakers, operating outside of the syndicate system. These are the small-time bookies Vinay spoke of. The ones who accept wagers of no more than 25,000 rupees (£306) on the regular match odds, brackets, innings runs and lunchtime favourite markets but also occasionally on ‘who will win the toss’, how many runs Tendulkar will score. Not, however, no-balls to be bowled at a specific time.
They are a discordant bunch. They are not structured. They are not connected to one another. And, most importantly, they do not have the safety net of the syndicate if their losses get too great. They are far less likely than the high-street bookmaker to take ‘requested’ wagers.
With that in mind, for the News of the World to break even from their £150,000 outlay, the minimum a fixer would expect, they would have had to seek out hundreds of these small-timers, who sometimes operate from the shop floor of factories, paying commission to the owner for a pitch to tout their wares.
To be precise, 490 separate wagers would have needed to be placed at the maximum bet of 25,000 rupees. And that was if the bookmaker would offer odds of even money – unlikely given that they were being approached by gamblers they had not previously met, and certainly did not trust, on a market they would never have chalked up. Frankly, it would have been nigh on impossible for anyone on the Indian system to have made money out of those no-balls being bowled at Lord’s.
In this example, the notion that one is able to fix weird and wonderful elements of cricket matches is once again exposed. Substitute the no-ball ‘spot-fix’ for a wide, a boundary being hit, a fielder being placed in a peculiar position, a bowler to open at a particular end. It is unfeasible, just as Vinay said. The minutiae of inside information is used to manipulate markets in the favour of the syndicate, bookmaker or punter, not to win specific bets.
A no-ball in a Twenty20 match adds to the batting team’s total and offers the batsman a free hit. One cannot bet on that no-ball occurring but the syndicate, bookmaker or punter can manipulate the odds in his favour for, say, a bracket because he knows that runs will be scored. It is a potentially game-changing event as thereis a maximum of 120 legal balls in a Twenty20 innings. Its importance in terms of inside information is significant. A no-ball in a Test match does not have the same impact, or even close. In one day of play in a Test match there are at least 540 legal balls. The runs quote for a bracket would not move the market sufficiently enough to be worth manipulating. It is not a game-changing event. A run has been scored. So what?
One 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 being bowled. Pakistan were shown to be guilty of corrupt practices. They were cheating the game, their team-mates and the spectators. And one would be absolutely right, but only if the court they were being tried in and the judge that would sentence them was 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 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.”
Mr Justice Cooke was apparently convinced that there was an opportunity to wager by evidence given by the prosecution’s first witness: Ravi Sawani, the former general manager of the ACSU. He told the court it is possible to bet on a no-ball. However, and to widespread astonishment, he also admitted he did not know what a bracket was.
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 really be guilty of such a charge?
The Gambling Act of 2005 defines ‘conspiracy to cheat at gambling’ as the following:
“1 A person commits an offence if he —
(a) cheats at gambling, or
(b) does anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) it is immaterial whether a person who cheats—
(a) improves his chances of winning anything, or
(b) wins anything.
(3) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) cheating at gambling may, in particular, consist of actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with—
(a) the process by which gambling is conducted, or
(b) a real or virtual game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates.”
It would be difficult to consider the conviction of the four men under this charge as robust simply because of the absence of an opportunity to bet on a no-ball, the earthquake that no one heard or felt. Butt, Asif, Amir or Majeed could not have been “cheats at gambling” or done “anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling” if there was no method to do either. That they could have been considered aware that they were “enabling or assisting” is the moot point perhaps. In the case of Amir, he has since claimed he was unaware that he was asked to bowl no-balls for betting purposes, instead blaming Majeed and Butt for tricking him into thinking his career would be under threat if he did not do as his captain told him.
So what the News of the World sting revealed was not spot-fixing but corrupt practices within the Pakistan team. That was the justification for the scoop, although there has since a lingering level of discomfort among journalists about the way it was conducted. Clearly it was a set-up, a classic agent provocateur – a person associated with individuals suspected of wrongdoing with the purpose of inciting them to commit acts that will make them liable to punishment. It is interesting to note that the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint by Yasir Hameed, the Pakistan batsman, on a similar ‘sting’ operation by the News of the World in relation to the spot-fixing scandal. Hameed argued that his privacy was breached by hidden cameras and recording equipment when he was speaking to the ‘Fake Sheikh’ about corruption in the Pakistan team.
Mr Justice Cook said the News of the World had “got what they bargained for”. He could have said that the News of the World were the corruptors – and to all intents and purposes that is exactly what they were. Without their money, those no-balls would not have been bowled.
Nor would the no-balls have been bowled if Mazhar Majeed was the fixing ‘kingpin’ as he was portrayed. The ‘sting’ would surely have been drawn from the News of the World if Majeed was indeed the experienced fixer that he claimed to be. In ‘sales’ chatter to impress the undercover journalist, Majeed boasted of his knowledge and expertise in the field:
““It’s been happening for centuries. It’s been happening for years. Wasim [Akram], Waqar [Younis, who was the coach of the Pakistan team during that series against England], Ijaz Ahmed, Moin Khan – they all did it.
““I’ve been doing this with the Pakistani team now for about two-and-a-half years, and we’ve made masses and masses of money. You can make absolute millions.
“We are working towards next month. It is going to be big. I will give you an exact script of how it is going to happen. We’ve got one result already planned and that is coming up in the next three and a half weeks. Pakistan will lose.”
Majeed said that it would cost between £50,000 and £80,000 for information for a bracket, £400,000 to fix a result of a Twenty20 match, £450,000 for a one-day international and £1 million to fix a Test match. There was no mention of how much a no-ball would cost because Majeed, correctly, did not believe one could bet on such an outcome. Yet when the News of the World reporter was talking about placing bets on no-balls, Majeed, instead of hearing alarm bells ringing in his head, heard the shrill of the cash register. Had money not been on his mind, he might have recognised he was being scammed.
Instead he was focused on providing the no-balls that had been demanded, believing that if he could prove that Pakistan players were under his control, there would be more money to come. When Majeed met the journalist at the Copthorne Tara Hotel on August 25, the evening before the Lord’s Test match, it was, in fact, the fifth time they had convened. Majeed was sure that Butt, Amir and Asif would do as he said. He was unequivocal where in the past he had been sketchy about details discussed from a previous Test at The Oval.
“I’m going to give you three no-balls, okay, right, to prove to you firstly that this is what is happening. No-balls are the easiest and they’re the clearest. There’s no signal, nothing. These three are definitely happening.”
Majeed was true to his word. Amir bowled a no-ball the next day from the third ball of the third over and Asif overstepped on the sixth ball of the tenth over. The third was not delivered because the poor weather which had delayed the start until 1.40pm and play was cut short with only 12.3 overs possible.
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.
There can be no doubt that an experienced fixer would know that it is not possible to bet on a no-ball. If Majeed had been the shrewd, shady operator that he claimed to be, and the News of the World 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 which 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. All odds pre-match are run by the Jayanti Malad syndicate and they only offer match odds, team innings runs and lunch favourite. For someone to try to bet on a no-ball before a match had started would be unthinkable.
So why did Majeed not realise that his game was up? The most likely explanation is that he was desperate for the money. His Bluesky firm, which had contracts with local councils to renovate derelict houses, was shown at the time of the trial by Companies House to have five County Court judgements against it. It also had unpaid bills of more than £74,000. Two more of Majeed’s companies were the subject of applications to strike off, a third was in liquidation, a fourth was in receivership and a fifth, also in liquidation, owed £596,000. The court was also told that, at the time of his arrest, police had found Majeed held 30 bank accounts showing total arrears of £704,000. These are not the trappings of a man who boasted about making “masses and masses of money”.
It is possible that Majeed was an aspirant fixer, which would go some way to explain the child-like delight that Amir described when he arrived in his hotel room at the Marriott in Swiss Cottage “looking like he had hit the jackpot, he was so happy” to give the young bowler £1,500. “He said. ‘You are my younger brother’ and he was buzzing with excitement.” One would have thought a veteran fixer would have recognised this as ‘business as usual’.
There are other clues to suggest that Majeed was an unproven operator in the field. For a start, there was the failed fix in The Oval Test that summer. Majeed had met with the News of the World reporter for the first time on August 16 at the Park Lane hotel, two days before the start of that match. The two parties were feeling each other out, establishing one another’s authenticity. Perhaps they were fooling each other.
It was not until their second meeting two days later that the discussion turned to fixing. They met at the Bombay Brasserie in London on the Gloucester Road. The journalist wanted no-balls to be bowled “so that our boys have got an indication this is on. Then they’ll invest big.” Majeed agreed and, ever the showman, added “I’ll give you two if you want.” When the pair met for a third time, on this occasion at a restaurant on the Edgware Road, Majeed confirmed a fix was on after he was paid £10,000:
“Alright, just to show you that it’s real, I’m going to show you two no-balls tomorrow… I’ll call you on another number, yeah, and I’ll call you about 8.30 in the morning and I’ll give you the two balls they’re going to do it on.”
Of course, it was not on. Majeed failed to give any details of when the no-balls would be bowled and by whom, suggesting that he was not as capable of influencing players as he said he was. Majeed started to stall for more time. He said the no-balls would not be bowled at The Oval on the third day because Waqar Younis, the coach, had warned the team about the number of no-balls on the opening day of the Test. Waqar, giving testimony to the ICC tribunal about the case, denied he gave such a teamtalk. Majeed then said there could be not be a no-ball the next day either because Saeed Ajmal, the spin bowler, was bowling and he was not under his influence.
In an attempt to appease the journalist, Majeed told him that he had agreed with Butt that the captain would play out a maiden in the first over on August 21 with the captain tapping with his bat the middle of the wicket after the second ball he had faced to confirm. Butt did not tap the pitch and there was no maiden.
Could it have been that Majeed was frantically trying to buy time to get players onside? Butt, who Majeed had described as a “million per cent” trustworthy, most likely was close to the businessman – he had made personal appearances to promote his faltering property firm and during The Oval Test was scheduled to open an ice cream parlour in Tooting that Majeed had a stake in – but it would appear doubtful he could trust anyone else in the Pakistan side.
At this stage the News of the World must have thought they had a dud. “He [Butt] didn’t do it [the maiden],” the journalist told Majeed. “What if we give you £150,000 and he doesn’t do it and then we put the big money on and it’s all over?”
And then, pertinently: “They don’t listen to you; they don’t take your orders.”
Majeed replied: “OK, boss. Just remember you’re telling me that they don’t listen to me, right? I’ve been in this game a long time and remember you’re the one who contacted me.”
Wounded by this criticism and worried he was about to be found out by the ‘syndicate’ for being a fraud (oh, the irony), a probably desperate Majeed hit upon a plan. With Butt’s help he would target the young naïf Amir and Asif, who came with a disreputable reputation as long as his bowling arm.
Amir, who spoke for the first time in-depth of the ordeal in March 2012, claimed that Majeed had blackmailed him to bowl the no-balls at Lord’s. On the eve of the Lord’s Test Amir received a telephone call from Majeed asking him to meet in the car park of the team hotel. They met in Majeed’s car.
“All of a sudden it was as if someone launched an attack,” Amir said. “He said to me, ‘You’re in big trouble, bro. You’re trapped and your career is at stake.’”
Majeed told him that the ICC’s ACSU had information that Amir had been talking about spot-fixing with a man called Ali, who the bowler knew as a ‘businessman’ he had met for the first time in Dubai in 2009. Text messages between the two showed that Ali was at the least trying to get Amir to spot-fix for him. One, on the eve of The Oval Test, from Ali to Amir read: “So in the first three bowl whatever you like and in the last two do 8 runs?”
There is no evidence that Amir fixed a bracket for Ali in that Test match and all communication between the two had stopped after that game. Majeed is likely to have known about Amir’s relationship with Ali because Butt had told the young tyro to stay away from Ali. Amir had told his captain that Ali had been “bugging” him.
“He [Majeed] said he could help me out of my difficulties but that I had to do a favour for him in return,” Amir said. “I asked him: ‘What favour?’ That’s when he mentioned the two no-balls.
“I realise now that nobody is more stupid than me, that I could not see how ridiculous it was that on the one hand he should be telling me that I was in trouble with the ICC and on the other that I should bowl him two no-balls. But I was panicking and I had lost the ability to comprehend what was going on. After about five minutes, Salman joined us and he sat in the back seat, leaning over between the two front seats, just listening. He didn’t say anything.
“I told him that it was impossible because my feet were always behind the line, that it was a wrong thing to do and that I was scared. He told me not to worry and to practise bowling them at Lord’s during the practice sessions before the match. He said not to worry because Salman would be with me and would help me. I got out of the car and Salman, who still hadn’t said anything at this point, stayed behind. I was worried now and went and sat on the team bus to go to practice, worrying about what I was to do.”
Asif needed manipulating too but he was too wily a campaigner to fall for such a simple trick as blackmail. Asif, it is understood, was known to the ACSU as an unreliable character. In 2006 he had been banned for doping before having his suspension overturned on appeal. He had also been detained in Dubai under the suspicion of carrying drugs and he had tested positive for a banned substance when playing in the IPL.
In court Majeed said via his barrister that he had paid £65,000 to Asif to “keep him loyal” and prevent him from joining rival fixing rackets, involved elsewhere within the team. This admission backs up the belief of Dheeraj Dixit, Asif’s former friend and the ‘fixer’ from Delhi, that Majeed had little control over the Pakistan players and that he had to keep paying out extra funds to try to prevent them from fixing with rival factions.
So we have picture of Majeed as financially broken, bungling and desperate. Someone who would blackmail an 18-year-old bowler considered the golden boy of Pakistan cricket into cheating, threatening him that his career was on the line. And then pay him a measly £1,500 for the deal. Asif, the polar opposite of Amir, and apparently a gun for hire, netted a handsome sum. Mr Justice Cooke said of Asif “it is hard to see how this could be an isolated occurrence for you.”
Justice Cooke was, however, convinced that Majeed and Butt were perceptive designers in the fixing world. He blamed them for corrupting Amir, who he described as “unsophisticated, uneducated, impressionable”.
He also told Majeed that he was not persuaded that the News of the World sting was the “tip of an iceberg” but pointed to evidence, outside of the boasts and bluster to the newspaper’s journalist, that suggested Majeed had been involved in fixing prior to the Lord’s Test. “It appears that corruption may have been more widespread than the defendants here before me and may have permeated the team in earlier days,” Justice Cooke said.
This is an extract from BookieGamblerFixerSpy: a journey to the heart of cricket's underworld. Buy the book here.
