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No life bans for Waugh/Warne - Mahmood denies report

Rick Eyre for CricInfo
28 December 1998




The news raised eyebrows across the cricketing world on Saturday when international wire services reported PCB chairman Khalid Mahmood as saying that India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka would move at next month's ICC meeting for Shane Warne and Mark Waugh to receive life bans from international cricket.

Today the alarm bells can be switched off with the news that this bizarre and illogical suggestion does not exist. ``The News'' (Karachi) reports today that an upset and angry Mahmood has denied giving a statement to foreign press services calling for any life ban on the Australian players.

Mahmood was quoted in ``The News'' as describing the report as ``absolute nonsense'', adding that he was embarrassed by the story as it ``does spoil our [the PCB's] working relationship with the ACB.'' Australian Cricket Board chief executive Mal Speed had stated on Sunday night, after the original wire report was released, that the ACB would reject any proposal that the two players receive a life ban.

Mahmood was further reported by the Karachi daily as saying that the national boards of Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka had reached a consensus that the ICC needed to have more powers to deal with match-fixing and betting and intended to put that on the agenda for the ICC's executive meeting at Christchurch on January 10 and 11.

Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined by the Australian Cricket Board in February 1995 after admitting that they had received money from an illegal Indian bookmaker during a one-day series in Sri Lanka in September 1994 in exchange for providing information about pitch and weather conditions. The disciplinary action was kept confidential by the ACB but was made public three weeks ago following investigations by an Australian newspaper. The ACB have launched an independent inquiry to investigate possible player involvement with illegal bookamkers. An ongoing inquiry is under way in Pakistan into allegations of match-fixing and betting in that country. Two representatives of the Pakistani inquiry will take testimony from Waugh and Warne in Melbourne on January 8. There has been no suggestion that either Waugh or Warne have been directly involved in any unlawful activity relating to the fixing of, or betting on, cricket matches.

Written by Rick Eyre for CricInfo365 (editor@cricinfo.com)



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