Shahid Afridi’s autobiography, Game Changer, is making all sorts of headlines. From accusing Gautam Gambhir for his attitude, to revealing his own age when he scored his first century, Shahid Afridi is on a roll.
But one of the most note-worthy revelations in the book has been his role in uncovering the spot fixing scandal of 2010. The Incident led to him stepping down from the Test captaincy after Pakistan’s defeat against Australia in the first test.
This is how everything panned out.
The Kid And The Phone
Mazhar Majeed (Salman Butt’s agent and manager) and his family joined the Pakistan cricket team during the Sri Lankan tour. Majeed’s young son dropped his father’s phone in the water at one of the beaches in Sri Lanka. Majeed took the phone with himself to England in order to fix it.
The shop-keeper who was also told to recover the messages, turned out to be a friend of a friend of Afridi. The shopkeeper found some strange messages and leaked it to his friends which eventually reached him, he writes.
“While fixing the phone, the shop-owner, who was asked to retrieve the messages, came across Majeed’s messages to the players of the Pakistan team. Though he shouldn’t have seen what he did, it was that leak from him to my friend and a few others (whom I won’t name) that looped me in on the scam.”
Afridi showed those messages to Waqar Younis and both of them didn’t feel the need to escalate the situation. They just thought it to be a “dodgy” conversation.
The Denial Of Yawar Saeed
Abdul Razzaq, one of finest players of Pakistan, said to Afridi that the duo of Aamir and Salman weren’t up to any good. Afridi ignored Razzaq’s opinion, but when he again saw Majeed hanging out with the players, he put in a formal request to the then team manager Yawar Saeed.
He made it clear that he didn’t want any of his players to maintain contact with Majeed on a personal level. When Yawar didn’t take any action, Afridi showed the messages that he had printed out to him.
Saeed was shocked for a moment, but the response that he came up with shocked Afridi a lot more.
‘What can we do about this, son? Not much. Not much.’
‘The Powerless Afridi’
Afridi, through his connections in England came to know that these guys posed genuine trouble. Now he wasn’t just banking upon those text messages, he had it on authority that something was indeed fishy.
All this while, the Pakistan’s team management continued to live in denial.
“Maybe the management was scared of the consequences. Maybe they were invested in these players as their favourites and future captains. Or maybe they didn’t have any respect for their country or the game. I really can’t say.”
Pakistan played two T-20 games in Australia and much to Afridi’s relief they won both of them. They, however, lost the first test match. This is how Afridi puts it.
“We played two T20s against Australia and won both. That provided some relief,of course. Then we started the first Test, which we lost as we didn’t – couldn’t, wouldn’t –perform.”
Shahid Afridi Quits
It was during the first test at Lord’s that Afridi started to doubt the whole setup. It was fourth day of the test match and Afridi decided that it was time to put an end to all of it. Albeit, in his own way.
He told Salman Butt that he can take over. Pakistan was 220-6, Marcus North was bowling, Afridi swept and he was taken in the deep. Afridi was done.
“Yes, I shouldn’t have quit my team. Yes, I should have played the second Test and not gone home. Yes, I was troubled, but I was in charge and should have done more. Much more.”
Afridi writes that he lost faith in the management. He thought they were not investigating the matter with kind of seriousness it required. They were just letting it slip away.
So, he says, he didn’t finish the Australian Tour and flew back home.
“Yes. For the record, I gave up. I quit.”
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