Pakistan cricket chief Ijaz Butt denied accusing England players of match-fixing on Monday after earlier suggesting they may have thrown a one-day international for "enormous" sums of cash. In an interview with BBC Radio Five Live, the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman said he had merely been relaying information from bookmakers relating to England's one-day defeat to Pakistan at the Oval on Friday.
"I have never said this. If you listen to the full tape of the NDTV interview, the bookies are saying this. I am not saying this," Butt said. Asked about mounting calls for the remaining two matches in the series - at Lord's on Monday and Southampton on Wednesday - to be cancelled, Butt said he wanted the games to go ahead.
"If they (the England and Wales Cricket Board) want to scrap it they can scrap it, we will go ahead with it," Butt told the BBC. Butt triggered uproar late Sunday in an interview with the NDTV news channel where he linked England's cricketers to match-fixing. "There is loud and clear talk in bookie circles that some English players were paid enormous amounts of money to lose the (Oval) match," Butt said. "No wonder there was total collapse of the English side."
Butt's comments came after fresh corruption claims against Pakistan emerged on Saturday, with Britain's Sun tabloid claiming to have been made aware of details of Pakistan's innings before Friday's match had got underway. The paper tipped off the ICC, which then watched as scoring patterns in two suspect overs emerged as predicted, The Sun said. But the overall result of the match was not believed to be fixed, the report added.
An England and Wales Cricket Board spokesman told AFP the organisation was making no comment about Butt's charges. However his remarks are certain to infuriate England's players, who have seen their own achievements in the Test series victory over Pakistan diminished by the corruption scandal embroiling the tourists.
Commentators in England were dismissive of Butt's comments Monday. Test legend Ian Botham, writing in a column in the Daily Mirror, questioned how Butt could be aware of chatter amongst illegal bookmakers. "Nice try on deflecting attention away from your team, but the question is what are you doing in bookies circles?" Botham wrote.
ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the new allegations raised by The Sun - which follow the suspension of three Pakistan players for alleged involvement in spot-fixing - warranted further investigation. Butt, however, told NDTV there was a conspiracy to "defraud Pakistan and Pakistani cricket" and threatened to reveal names of those involved in the conspiracy. Pakistan's Salman Butt, Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif have all been questioned by British police over an alleged plot to bowl deliberate no-balls during last month's Test at Lord's.
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