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Karachi: The ghost of match-fixing has come back to haunt Pakistan cricket, feels former chief selector Abdul Qadir, who suspects that some players might be involved in it considering the "strange" manner in which the team lost the Test and ODI series in Sri Lanka.
Pakistan lost the Test series 0-2 and is trailing 0-3 in the five-match One-day series. Qadir, one of the greatest leg-spinners of his era told a newspaper on Tuesday that he suspected something fishy in the way team has lost.
"Look I don't buy the fact that the very team that just five weeks ago won the Twenty20 World Cup is performing so badly that it is virtually losing every match in Sri Lanka. This has been one of our worst tours to Sri Lanka," Qadir said.
"After following this series I suspect some players could be involved in match fixing and if a high level inquiry committee is formed everything will become crystal clear," he added.
He said cricket had not become so unpredictable that a team that won the World Cup would perform so poorly.
"It is strange the way we are losing matches. When the bowling clicks the batsmen don't perform. When the batsmen perform the bowler's don't perform. Something is wrong somewhere," Qadir said.
Former captain and wicketkeeper Rashid Latif, however, criticised the team management for exposing the story about suspicious Indian people trying to get in touch with the Pakistani players in Colombo at the wrong time.
"Even if such a thing had happened why talk about it to the press just after a big Test series defeat? It makes no sense to me. The matter should have been handled quietly by the team management and board and they should have allowed the team to concentrate on their cricket," Latif said.
He said Yawar Saeed's timing was faulty and the story had shaken the confidence of the team.
"I think the board and the team management are to blame for the defeats. The team is like a puzzle at the moment which is not being solved. I think someone will have to take responsibility and show the way to others," he said.
