LONDON - In a second exclusive of his book on corruption in cricket, Ed Hawkins has described how the judge and the jury that convicted Pakistan’s Aamir, Asif and Butt were themselves not fully aware of match and spot fixing rules, reports the DailyMail.
The then captain Salman Butt, and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were jailed for 30 months, one year and six months respectively after being convicted on charges of spot fixing last year.
They were convicted for involvement in bowling no-balls, but the book quotes Indian bookies as saying that no-balls are not gambled upon because there is a great chance of the person already having inside information.
“Do you think we’re fools? If someone says they want this no-ball bet for big monies and I’m Ladbrokes, I tell them to go away. No bookmaker in the world takes this bet,” an Indian bookie was quoted as saying.
The book revealed that the court and the judge who tried the Pakistani trio were not aware of this fact. Hawkins also claims in his book that the bookie Mazhar Majeed was not the experience kingpin as he was portrayed to be. If he was, Hawkins argues, betting on no-balls would have ringed alarm bells in his head.