Pak cricketers just want money, women, food: Bookie

Pak cricketers just want money, women, food: Bookie

Pak cricketers just want money, women, food: Bookie

Tags : Mazhar Majeed, spot-fixing, Salman Butt

Posted: Sun Aug 29 2010, 14:40 hrs

Updated: Sun Aug 29 2010, 19:20 hrs

London:

Pakistan's captain Salman Butt arrives at Lord's with other squad members.

A lot of Pakistani cricketers are "just looking for money, women and food" and very few of them have any love for the game, claims the bookie arrested for alleged 'spot-fixing' in the England-Pakistan Test here.

Mazhar Majeed, the bookie who has made sensational claims of bribing Pakistani cricketers for bowling no balls in a sting operation by a British tabloid, claimed a lot of players were only bothered about money.

"You'll find there's only a few players who are genuine and who are actually here for the love of the game, and there's not many believe me. A lot of them are just looking for money, women and food," Majeed has been quoted as saying in the video tapes of the sting released by 'The News of the World'.

"How much they're getting paid is a joke. I came from a football background and I can see the difference in football and cricket. It's huge.

Majeed claimed cheating was not confined to match-fixing alone and that ball tampering had also become regular in the Pakistan team.

"I used to go out on the pitch to give the players their drinks. Whenever we couldn't get a wicket I'd have a lump of Vaseline on my hand. Shake their hand.

"They'd put it on one side of the ball and the ball would suddenly start in-swinging," he said.

Majeed revealed that he wanted Salman Butt to continue as captain for long as possible.

"I give out the information the night before or morning. What's going to happen at the end of the fourth day. But now we are not going to do any results for the next two games because we want Salman Butt to be captain long term," Majeed stated.