With Pakistan Cricketer Umar Akmal being handed three year ban by Pakistan Cricket Board for match fixing, various stories from past about fixing and players underperforming are coming out in Pakistan media.
Latest to join the flurry of such reports is former Pakistan pacer Rana Naved-ul-Hasan.
Rana as per Pakistan local media reports has has claimed that some players had deliberately underperformed during the side’s 2009 three-match ODI series against New Zealand as they were were dissatisfied playing under their then skipper Younus Khan.
The former cricketer said that the players’ purposeful nonperformance saw Pakistan suffer a 2-1 loss in the series.
“We lost two ODI matches because some of the players involved deliberately did not play well and I sat out that tour. I did not play because I had told Younis that there was a conspiracy against him and that I was also a part of that plot,” Rana was quoted as saying.
However, the former cricketer clarified that the anonymous cricketers’ actions were not in “rebellion” of their him as a player but instead had their own self-interest involved in taking charge as Younis had “become a different person” after receiving captaincy .
“This was not a rebellion against Younis Khan. He was a good cricketer so there were no issues except when he became captain, he became a different person.”
“Some seniors, I won’t name names, may have had aspirations of being captains themselves and got us involved in this whole affair to further their aims. We were about seven to eight people involved in this.”
Rana further divulged into the details of their meeting and revealed that the purpose of grouping was so that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) could knock some sense into Younis, who they believed did not take advice from his senior players.
Furthermore, he mentioned that the meeting involved some of the country’s biggest names but refused to disclose them.
“We were all called into a room and took an oath of allegiance. There were some big names of Pakistan cricket in that room and if I mention those names they will get angry with me,” he said.
“They said that they did not want him to be removed wanted the PCB chairman to reason with Younis as he did not take advice of senior and did what he felt like doing.”
“I went along with this thinking that if this is the only matter and the PCB chairman tells him that, then I don’t have an issue with this,” he concluded.