PCB hit by another storm

The video recordings were shown on the Geo television network on Monday and caused a stir as the officials and players appearing before the inquiry committee made some startling statements which were previously not publicised by the board nor the officials or players.

“The board had the video recordings of the proceedings since February and nothing was leaked out to the media,” PCB legal advisor, Tafazzul Rizvi said.

“But we had given the video and audio recordings to some of the players and their legal representatives. So it was very obvious who leaked these video recordings,” Rizvi said.
He said the board had kept all the proceedings of the inquiry committee confidential for the sake of Pakistan cricket, the reputation of the players and the sport itself. “But if the players want these things to come out in the open then fine they will also have to bear the consequences, the board is certainly not responsible for leaking out these confidential things,” Rizvi said.

In March, the committee recommended bans on Younis Khan, Muhammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved and fines on Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal and Umar Akmal which the board enforced in letter and spirit. Except for Yousuf the rest of the players all filed appeals with a single man appellate tribunal headed by Justice (retd) Irfan Qadir.

Asked about the suspicions raised in the video recordings by former Pakistan team coaches, Aaqib Javed and Intikhab Alam that some players might be involved in fixing, Rizvi said suspicions could be raised easily but it was very difficult to find evidence.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Senate standing committee on sports, Ghaffar Qureshi has said that the committee members had told the media that they had seen evidence of some players being involved in match fixing after being shown the same recordings by the board sometimes back.