The tenth day of the spot-fixing trial saw banned fast-bowler Mohammad Asif’s lawyer accuse the player’s former captain Salman Butt of ‘pressurising him’ to ‘run faster’ before he bowled his allegedly pre-determined no-ball at the Lord’s Test last year.
Butt and Asif are facing charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, when they allegedly conspired with agent Mazhar Majeed, and fast-bowler Mohammad Amir, to bowl pre-planned no-balls. Butt and Asif deny the charges.
The court was played the over in question bowled by Asif in which he delivered the no-ball, after which Asif’s lawyer Alexander Milne pointedly said to Butt: “You had been talking to Asif through this over and pressurising him.”
The court had previously heard Asif say in a police transcript from an interview a year ago that he is “never pressured by anyone” but on that occasion he was referring to the notion that he was being put under pressure to fix, not to run faster.
However, Butt denied the suggestion.
“I’m not there to pressure him, just to encourage,” replied Butt.
But Milne responded: “Before Asif bowled his no-ball, you said to him, ‘run faster, you are running too slow’.”
Again, Butt denied that such a conversation had taken place.
“If you have played cricket you would know that these things are never said. It’s no term. There’s no suggestion in cricket as ‘run faster’.
He’s not running the 100 metres, he’s bowling. Asif has never been about pace, he is a rhythm bowler.”
‘I misjudged completely’
Earlier, Butt said that he “misjudged” his former agent Mazhar Majeed, and admitted to ‘suspicions’ about Amir and Asif after the no-ball scandal was revealed.
“I didn’t realise what kind of man he was,” Butt told the court. “But now with the things that have come out I think I have misjudged somebody completely. I just took his word and trusted him. I knew him for a long time and never thought there would be another side to him that would be this bad.”
No comments:
Post a Comment