LAHORE: Former chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Arif Ali Khan Abbasi has supported ex-national side captain Salim Malik and said he has already paid a huge price for the match-fixing offence and has the right to perform his role in the game of cricket.

Talking to Dawn, Abbasi said Fakharuddin G Ebraheem — one of the celebrated jurists of the country — had exonerated Salim in the allegations levelled against him by three Australian cricketers Shane Warne, Mark Waugh and Tim May in 1995.

“But even then he was banned for life by Justice Qayyum commission in 1999. Neither Cricket Australia, nor the ICC match officials have reported any wrong incident in the 1994 series between the two countries. But after six months Warne, Waugh and May raised the allegations that Salim tried to bribe them to under-perform,” Abbasi recalled.

Abbasi said Justice Fakharuddin had cleared Salim because the allegations were made after six months and furthermore no solid evidence were produced.

Read: What to make of Saleem Malik’s mea culpa?

“Even Cricket Australia also imposed ban on its three cricketers besides some cash penalty for making false allegations,” Abbasi said.

It may also be mentioned here that both Warne and Waugh were fined by Cricket Australia for leaking some information about the match to bookies in 1994 in a tournament played in Sri Lanka.

He said the allegations by the three Australian players were not substantiated and yet too much propaganda was made against Salim who was a successful captain of Pakistan with a high success rate.

“We have a long legacy of spoiling our talent and no one can ignore the services of Salim he has rendered for Pakistan cricket as a player and captain,” Abbasi said. “But I don’t know who we are pleasing by defaming our own celebrated cricketers,” he said.

Abbasi insisted that since a legal court had also lifted the ban on Salim, he should be free to play his role as a coach.

He reminded that even former chairman PCB Ijaz Butt had appointed Salim as a leading official in the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in 2010.

However, to put the facts right, it may be mentioned here that while Ijaz did appoint Salim at the NCA, he withdrew that decision after just a few hours since the media had dubbed the appointment as against the recommendation of Justice Qayyum’s commission report which had put a life ban on the middle-order batsman.

Abbasi said Salim was one of the finest cricketers in the world at his peak and a conspiracy was hatched against him, which resulted in the country losing a big star. “It is quite unfortunate that after 20 years, Salim is being maligned again.”

Abbasi also said that the PCB lawyer Taffazul Rizvi had written to Salim saying that whatever had happened to him (Salim) was because he had annoyed someone big in the PCB. “I still remember that Salim had replied that if he had annoyed anyone, he wanted to say sorry for it.”

He concluded by saying that Salim is not answerable to anyone as he has been cleared by all authorities.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2020