Cricket
Kaneria, Westfield found guilty
2012-06-22 13:19
London - Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish
Kaneria was branded a "liar" after being found guilty of match-fixing
offences relating to his involvement in the Mervyn Westfield case by an
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) disciplinary panel on Friday.
"We
consider that in many respects the evidence of Danish Kaneria simply
does not stand up to scrutiny and is plainly lies," the panel's
statement said.
The statement added: "The panel will now consider
the appropriate sanction against both players and a decision is expected
later today (Friday)."
Westfield was jailed for four months in
February after admitting he accepted money to under-perform during a
Pro40 match between Essex and Durham in 2009.
The now 24-year-old
Westfield named Kaneria - arrested with him in 2010 but released
without charge - as the link between bookmakers and players.
And
the ECB panel agreed, saying: "We are left in no reasonable doubt that
Danish Kaneria knowingly induced or encouraged Mervyn Westfield not to
perform on his merits in the Durham match."
Kaneria was found guilty by the ECB of two charges.
Firstly,
he "induced or encouraged, or attempted to induce or encourage, Mervyn
Westfield not to perform on his merits, that is, to deliberately concede
a minimum number of runs in his first over of the match between Essex
and Durham."
And secondly, he was also found guilty of bringing
cricket into disrepute "by inducing or encouraging Mervyn Westfield not
to perform on his merits".
Westfield was charged by a three-man
panel chaired by lawyer Gerard Elias and featuring retired former
England one-day international bowler Jamie Dalrymple with bringing
cricket into disrepute, a charged the seamer accepted.
The panel
said Kaneria, by his own admission, had introduced Westfield in a
nightclub to Arun or Anu Bhatt an Indian businessman who, prior to
November 2007, had come to the notice of the Anti Corruption and
Security Unit (ACSU) of the International Cricket Council as "allegedly
being heavily involved in illegal betting".
They added they
rejected as "nonsensical", Kaneria's claim his invitation to Bhatt to
attend Dukes Nightclub in Chelmsford, Essex, was in order to keep him at
arms length or similarly that obtaining tickets for him in Durham was
with the same object.
"We reject his (Kaneria's) basic account
that he had nothing to do with any arrangement between Westfield and
Bhatt -- indeed we are sure that he facilitated it," the panel said.
The
31-year-old Kaneria has not played for Pakistan since making the last
of his 61 Test appearances against England in August 2010 -- the same
tour that saw the infamous spot-fixing episode in the Lord's Test, which
led to then-captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad
Aamer being jailed on corruption charges.
Butt, jailed for 30 months last November on charges of accepting corrupt payments, was freed on Thursday.
Aamer was released in February after serving half his six-month sentence while Asif, jailed for 12 months, was freed in May.