I was not the whistleblower of 2010 spot-fixing scandal, clarifies Shahid Afridi

Ever since the release of his autobiography “Game Changer”, Shahid Afridi has cooked up a storm with his sensational claims. Tabloid ‘News of the World’ broke out the spot-fixing story during the fourth Test of Pakistan’s 2010 tour of England and Afridi was the skipper of Pakistan in the ODI and T20I series that followed. He has reiterated that it was not him that leaked out the news to the tabloid.

"These players (Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir) still think that Lala (Afridi) blew the whistle about them to the newspaper that is not true. It was one of my friends in England who passed on the information without informing me and even after that the newspaper carried out its own investigation and sting operation to confirm and trap the players," Afridi said on a news channel, reported PTI.

The T20 World Cup was played in West Indies in 2010 and Afridi alleged that even his teammate Abdul Razzaq felt that there was something fishy but he then dismissed the all-rounder’s claims. 

"Razzaq kept on telling me after one match against Sri Lanka that he had doubts about Salman Butt but I did not believe him at that time. I said they are like our younger brothers. Later on as fate would have it a damaged mobile which went to a repair shop and whose owner knew my friend in England revealed messages that surprised me and made me suspect that these players were indeed spot-fixing matches," he explained.

Afridi, who made his debut in 1996, claimed that he was disappointed to know that the Test skipper Salman Butt was also involved in the scandal and that he could not sleep for days. He also added that he did not have to courage to face Razzaq and did not confront the involved players as he received a lukewarm reaction from the team management including the coach Waqar Younis and even Yawar Saeed when he showed them the messages.

"It was disappointing for me. My first job was to inform the management, I did that they said 'beta kya kar sakta hai ab (son, what we can do now)'. That is also why I gave up Test cricket and the captaincy and returned home,” shared the 39-year-old.

However, he maintained that the management did discourage players from meeting up with suspicious people like Mazhar Majeed. Afridi also went on to say why he supported Amir, who was banned for only five years due to his juvenile age and confession, in his comeback in January 2016 in New Zealand.

"When the 'News of the World' broke the story and I had returned to England for the limited over matches, I confronted the three players and told them to admit if they had done it as we could help them. Butt kept on denying and even took oath he had done nothing wrong. In contrast, the first time I confronted Amir he came to me and admitted he had made a big mistake. He also confessed in court," he revealed.

Lastly, he also spoke about legendary players Younis and Javed Miandad in their roles as a coach. Afridi said that Waqar tried to spread rumours about him in the team and there was a lot of back-biting while Miandad had a habit of getting involved in the tussle with players. 

"I still have a lot of respect for both as players. But it is not necessary that a big player can be a good coach and it applied to both. Waqar changed after becoming captain and he had a different personality for the worse after becoming coach. He used to interfere in everything and tried to dictate terms. He even used to give me pieces of paper before we went onto the field as who to bowl, when and where to set fielding. As captain this was annoying for me,” he remarked.

He was all praise for former Pakistan coach late Bob Woolmer.

"The reason we rate Bob Woolmer highly is he gave us space and never got involved in any tussle with the players,” signed off Afridi.