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Monday 17 October 2011

Spot Fixing


Butt confronted Majeed at World Twenty20





Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt told a court on Monday how he confronted his agent Mazhar Majeed about text messages he had sent him to fix elements of a Twenty20 match against South Africa at the 2010 Twenty20 World Cup.
Butt's comments came on the afternoon of the ninth day of the alleged spot-fixing trial at Southwark Crown Court. It was the first time he had taken the witness box after the prosecution closed its case.
Former opening batsman Butt was questioned about text messages he had received from Majeed, who was his agent from 2006 until 2010, relating to fixing. Butt first gave the background to the messages, which came on the back of a losing tour of Australia when they lost every single match in 2009-10.
"He would say before a game 'give me something'," Butt told the court. "I didn't like it and I felt bad about it. We are not what you are thinking of us. We don't lose intentionally. But it didn't make any difference to him."
He added, on when Majeed would raise such topics: "I would get rid of the conversations in my own language and say 'thik he'." At this stage Butt utilised the services of the female interpreter standing by his side for the first time. She explained that what he was saying meant 'Okay, let's move on'.
Despite Butt's intentions to deter Majeed's messages, they didn't stop. His lawyer, Ali Bajwa QC, asked him to explain messages found on Majeed's phone that were sent to him. One such message read: "Give us one in the seventh and one in the eighth." Bajwa asked Butt if he remembered receiving the messages at that time. He said 'Well it is my phone so I must have read them". But when Bajwa asked him if he knew what the message meant, he responded "No".
During the Twenty20 match against South Africa, on May 10 2010 in St. Lucia, Butt was dismissed in the second over caught while trying to pull Dale Steyn. But Pakistan won the match by 11 runs. Bajwa asked Butt if he was captain at that time so to determine to the jury whether he had any influence on events in the match and Butt said, "No".
The court had already heard from written evidence given by the Pakistan team's then security manager, Major Khwaja Najam Javed, that Majeed was in the Caribbean at the time for the tournament with his family.
Butt then explained that he confronted Majeed on the day of this match and he told him: "We are not like these messages you are sending me. These things you are sending me we have to report. He then said that I was his friend and we had known one another for a long time and that he was just checking if we were doing anything dodgy.
Butt added: "I took his word for the explanation because in four years there was nothing like this and this was something that anybody in my place would not have been suspicious about because I never expected it to come. I didn't report it because I thought he meant what he said."
The case continues.

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