No life bans for Waugh/Warne - Mahmood denies report
Rick Eyre for CricInfo
28 December 1998
The news raised eyebrows across the cricketing world on Saturday when
international wire services reported PCB chairman Khalid Mahmood as saying
that India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka would move at next month's ICC meeting
for Shane Warne and Mark Waugh to receive life bans from international
cricket.
Today the alarm bells can be switched off with the news that this bizarre
and illogical suggestion does not exist. ``The News'' (Karachi) reports
today
that an upset and angry Mahmood has denied giving a statement to foreign
press services calling for any life ban on the Australian players.
Mahmood was quoted in ``The News'' as describing the report as ``absolute
nonsense'', adding that he was embarrassed by the story as it ``does spoil
our
[the PCB's] working relationship with the ACB.'' Australian Cricket Board
chief
executive Mal Speed had stated on Sunday night, after the original wire
report
was released, that the ACB would reject any proposal that the two players
receive a life ban.
Mahmood was further reported by the Karachi daily as saying that the
national
boards of Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka had reached a consensus that the
ICC
needed to have more powers to deal with match-fixing and betting and
intended to
put that on the agenda for the ICC's executive meeting at Christchurch on
January 10 and 11.
Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined by the Australian Cricket Board in
February 1995 after admitting that they had received money from an illegal
Indian bookmaker during a one-day series in Sri Lanka in September 1994 in
exchange for providing information about pitch and weather conditions.
The
disciplinary action was kept confidential by the ACB but was made public
three
weeks ago following investigations by an Australian newspaper. The ACB
have
launched an independent inquiry to investigate possible player involvement
with
illegal bookamkers. An ongoing inquiry is under way in Pakistan into
allegations of match-fixing and betting in that country. Two
representatives of
the Pakistani inquiry will take testimony from Waugh and Warne in
Melbourne on
January 8. There has been no suggestion that either Waugh or Warne have
been
directly involved in any unlawful activity relating to the fixing of, or
betting
on, cricket matches.
Written by Rick Eyre for CricInfo365 (editor@cricinfo.com)
