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Former captain Wasim Akram Sunday once again pleaded his innocence and maintained that his team lost the 1999 World Cup matches fair and square. "My conscience is absolutely clear. I have nothing to hide. I have played my cricket to the best of my ability and with the objective to win every game," the 35-year-old stalwart said from Lahore.

Wasim and five others cricketers have been summoned for Oct 20 hearing by Justice Karamat Bhindari who is investigating allegations that Pakistan deliberately threw matches to India and Bangladesh in the 1999 event.

Majid Khan, former chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board, in his statement Saturday repeated the allegations and also raised suspicion on the World Cup final which Pakistan lost by eight wickets. "We lost the World Cup games to the teams who were better on that day and not because they were better than us. One-day cricket is circus where the team playing good on that day emerges winner.

"It's not like Test cricket when well-prepared teams can bounce back and make amends for first innings failures. You play bad on that day and you lose, its as simple as that," Wasim, who has a record 440 one-day wickets, said. Wasim said he hasn't thought about the Oct 20 hearing but maintained that he would talk to the coach and his fellow players when he meets them at the camp Monday.

"Unfortunately, it has become a trend that whenever there is an international season, a controversy is waiting to greet us. But I am taking this inquiry as an exercise aimed at settling the issue once and for all." Wasim, commenting on Majid's statement, said he never understood why the former captain was against the current players. "Somehow, he has never liked the current players. He has always tried to find excuses to slam the players," he said.

Wasim, without going into details because the case was in the court of law, did argue that against India in Super Six match at Old Trafford, Pakistan batted second because he lost the toss. "I don't have to say that Pakistan has a reputation of being bad chasers and the Indians exploited it." As regards the final against Australia at Lord's, he said he had batted first because he had also won the league game while defending a total.

"Our strength in the competition was bowling and any captain would chalk out a strategy according to his strength and to opponents' weaknesses." Commenting on the Bangladesh game at Northampton, which is considered as the biggest upset of all time, Wasim blamed the pitch and added that he had opted to bat second just to let his team have a feel of things while chasing a target.

© Dawn