Former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali has backed alleged bookmaker Mazhar Majeed’s claims that Australian players were “the biggest” when it came to rigging games.
Australia was dragged into the ‘fixing’ controversy when sports agent Mazhar Majeed, claimed on a recorded tape that Australian players would fix “brackets”, one of five particular periods during a one-day international that bookies liked to accept bets on. “The Australians, they are the biggest. They have 10 brackets a game,” he said in the tape played to a London court hearing the spot-fixing case.
Claiming match-fixing had been going on “for centuries”, Majeed also named celebrated former Pakistan fast bowlers Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis as alleged culprits. “It’s been happening for centuries. It’s been happening for years. Wasim, Waqar, Ijaz Ahmed, Moin Khan – they all did it,” he was quoted as saying. While many of Majeed’s shocking claims may have been attempts at impressing the undercover journalist, his comments regarding Australian players being the ‘biggest match-fixers’ were entirely true, according to former Test cricketer Basit Ali. Cricket Australia and its players have denied Majeed’s allegations, however, Basit insisted that what the agent had said about the Australians was true.