Friday, February 1, 2002 When is an inquiry not an inquiry? When no-one answers any questions. Justice Karamat Bhandari of Pakistan has just presided over a non-event, a going-through-the-motions that was predicted here right at the start. I even offered to eat my computer if I was wrong. Luckily my digestive system will live to fight another day.

I'd say it was a waste of taxpayers' money, but that assumes that there are taxpayers in Pakistan. I'd say it was a waste of energy if any had been expended. I'd say it had finally killed off rumours of Pakistan's impropriety during the last World Cup ... but I'd be a liar.

Let's start with praise, though. The Pakistan Cricket Board promised ICC that it would investigate allegations into Pakistan's performances, and it has. Justice Bhandari promised us that his commission would conclude its business by the end of January, and it has. That's as good as it gets. The world is none the wiser after this five-month inquiry, and Justice Bhandari is claiming the dubious record of not having unearthed a single shred of new evidence. Why did he bother?

The recurrent theme in Pakistani match-fixing inquiries is their mysterious inability to persuade witnesses to appear, while those that do have their day in court manage to leave without imparting with any useful information. One of the frustrations of appearing on radio or television - unless it happens to be the BBC's Newsnight - is that your preparation seems a waste of time because the interview skims so superficially that you rarely get to the heart of the matter. Courts of law are not supposed to work that way. By contrast, Pakistani inquiries do not even dig deep enough to skim the surface, preferring to soar clear of anything that might resemble facts. Innuendo yes; facts no.

But the PCB and Bhandari are not the only villains. Majid Khan, the primmest and most proper of Pakistan's cricketers, has shown himself to be all Cambridge mouth and no Oxford trousers. The matches were fixed, you say Mighty Khan, but who fixed them? And which player did what? You say you know, but how do you know? That's right, your fellow administrator Dr Ali Bacher told you, or did you tell him? Or did Dr Bacher, high on allegation, low on evidence, use you and your country's cricket team as a convenient diversion at the height of South Africa's embarrassment over its leather-jacketed favourite son?

And Dr Backout, why did you fail to testify or send a statement to Justice Bhandari's commission? You were asked not once but twice, and you could not have failed to notice the clamour of the world's media for you to substantiate your allegations. But these must have been empty words, or why resign yourself to the embarrassment of ducking a judicial inquiry into the most serious threat the game has faced?

So this is either a slander or a cover-up. I doubt whether either of these questions will be addressed - but they should. Neither will the fact that these men of "substance" have been, in the case of Khan the Toothless, appointed to ICC's Referees Commission or, in the case of Dr Finger-Pointer, asked to organise the next World Cup. If the players are innocent they might want to consider testing the courts and asking the good and the great of international cricket administration to back their words with proof - or pay the price. If I was innocent and my career had been tarnished I know what I would do. Otherwise my silence would be broken only by sighs of relief.

Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. His Asian View appears on Wisden.com every Friday.

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