Sydney, Sep.5 (ANI): Australia's dramatic win over Pakistan in January's Sydney Test is now suspected to be the result of a fix.
The day before the Test in January, two of the three Pakistanis who have become embroiled in cricket's greatest match-fixing scandal - Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir-were acting jubilant and cheeky in an Ed Hardy store while clad in fluorescent apparel.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, their VIP treatment in the store was in stark contrast to teenage sensation Amir's upbringing in a severely underprivileged and sometimes violent village in Pakistan's troubled Swat Valley.
Both were drinking branded and bottled Ed Hardy water that peculiar summer's day. They were joking around, parading clothes to their teammates like they were casting for Australian Fashion Week. Amir - the left-arm paceman who is the youngest in the game to bag 50 Test wickets - and stylish opening batsman Butt rejoiced in each other's company like old friends.
Amir struggled to speak English but his television-certified smile was there. Pakistan's now captain Butt did the talking for him, all of it glowing appraisals for the wide-eyed rookie in awe of the high-flying company he was keeping aged just 17.
Intelligent and endearing, Butt was every bit the leader; a gentleman, a mentor.
Last week, UK millionaire businessman-cum-bookie Majeed, was caught in a media sting, saying he made 1.3 million dollars from the Test match in Sydney, from which Amir was a late scratching - when Australia blew out from 40-1 to win the match at 150-1.
"Australia had two more wickets left," Majeed said on a video secretly taped by the British tabloid News of the World.
He further revealed: "They had a lead of 10 runs. And Pakistan had all their wickets remaining. We let them get up to 150, then everyone lost their wickets. Tests is where the biggest money is because those situations arise."
The outcome of the Test was unusual.
Our cricket scribe Peter Roebuck wrote insightfully: "A team trying to lose could hardly have played any worse ... the SCG hosted a struggle between a side unwilling to lose and an outfit afraid to win."
The former Pakistan coach and Australian Test cricketer Geoff Lawson last week gave a glimpse into the life of Amir that painted a very different picture to our day. "I will never condone any form of fixing but we should consider that a cricketer might not be thinking of personal gain but of getting money to buy a generator for his village because they don't have electricity." (ANI)
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