Pakistan cricket rocked by new fix claims

Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer are already the subject of police and International Cricket Council (ICC) investigations, following revelations in last week’s News of the World.

The ICC was unable to confirm or deny any of the details in the latest report, which says there are a total of 23 charges hanging over the three men.

A spokesman for world cricket’s governing body said: “We cannot discuss ongoing investigations.” A Metropolitan Police spokesman would not say whether they had questioned a fourth player.

Today the News of the World reported test batsman Yasir Hameed, who played in the fourth test at the Oval, as saying: “They’ve been caught.

Only the ones that get caught are branded crooks.

“They were doing it (fixing) in almost every match. God knows what they were up to. Scotland Yard was after them for ages.

“It makes me angry because I’m playing my best and they are trying to lose.”

Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed later told reporters at the team hotel in Cardiff that Hameed had denied making such statements, although there is believed to be video footage of the conversation.

Asked about the explosive claims, Saeed said: “I have just spoken to Yasir and he did deny it.

“I said, ‘If you have not said these things why are they saying this?’

“Again he said, ‘I have not said it’. That’s all, let’s wait and see what happens.”

Later today, Mr Hameed said he was only repeating allegations he had read in the newspapers. In a statement read out on the steps of the Pakistan High Commission in central London, a spokesman said Hameed was approached by a man he believed was offering him a sponsorship deal and did not know the conversation was being recorded.

It was only later that Hameed discovered the man was the News of the World’s “fake sheikh” Mazher Mahmood. “Naturally, I was interested in what he had to say and we began a conversation,” the statement said.

“He offered me at least £50,000 for the deal.”

He said he was asked for the names of four more players who may be interested in a similar deal and then asked about the match-fixing allegations.

“As I saw him as a friend and a potential agent I naively started to answer his questions,” he said.

“As far as I recall, I only told him whatever I had already read in the newspapers about the matter.”

There were also suggestions Hameed was offered, and turned down, £100,000 to fix matches.

The Sunday paper also carries reports that investigators recovered between £10,000 and £15,000 of marked banknotes in Butt’s hotel room.

Yesterday Pakistan Twenty20 captain Shahid Afridi issued an apology “to all cricket lovers and all the cricketing nations”.