Ex-Pakistan captain agreed to bat out maiden as part of scam, court hears

Butt and team-mates Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Amir are accused at London’s Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments between 15 and 29 August last year.

The focus previously centred on the deliberate bowling of no-balls in the fourth Test between England and Pakistan at Lord’s.

However, Butt was also accused by prosecutors yesterday of agreeing to bat a maiden over on the final day of the third Test at The Oval, which was played a week earlier.

Butt ended up coming to the crease earlier than expected and unwittingly scoring a run in that over, the court heard.

Jurors heard tape recordings which it is claimed are of Butt’s agent Mazhar Majeed, who is accused of being the middleman in the betting scam, boasting he had four other Pakistan players working for him.

Majeed named the players as bowler Wahab Riaz, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal, and batsmen Umar Akmal and Imran Farhat.

Riaz was questioned by police that summer over allegations of spot fixing but was not charged.

“These boys are going to be around for years, and I’ve got the best boys,” Majeed is alleged to have told an undercover reporter working for the now-defunct News of the World, who was posing as a rich Indian businessman.

Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee told the court that Majeed said there had been a “little question mark” about Farhat’s potential involvement. However, Majeed is alleged to have told the reporter that Butt was “1 million per cent trustworthy”.

A transcript said to be of a conversation between Butt and Majeed, regarding Butt’s willingness to bat a maiden over at The Oval, was read to the jury.

“You know the maiden we were doing in the first over?” Majeed said. Butt allegedly replied: “Yeah,” before rejecting a request to bat another maiden in the third over.

And Jafferjee told the jury: “If not party to this corrupt agreement, you might expect Butt to say something to the effect of, ‘what are you talking about?’.”

Before the Test at Lord’s a week later, the undercover reporter and Majeed met in a hotel in London.

The jury was shown a covertly-filmed video of the reporter handing £140,000 in £50 notes to Majeed, who counted out the money on a table in front of him.

Majeed promised the reporter that the 19-year-old Amir and Asif, 28, would deliver three no-balls at specific points in the match.

“To show we are serious I’m going to give you three no-balls. No-balls are the easiest and the clearest,” Majeed is alleged to have said.

During the match Asif bowled a delivery where his front foot was only inches past the crease – not on it or behind it, which would have been a legitimate ball. But Jafferjee decribed Amir as “relatively hapless” and added that he ended up bowling no-balls that, “as a seasoned cricket statistician will tell you, were the biggest no-balls he’s ever seen”.

Butt and Asif deny the two charges against them. Amir and Majeed aren’t required to appear in court.