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KARACHI: The former head of Pakistan's cricket board Saturday called for an investigation into his country's 2011 World Cup semi-final against India after a new book raised the possibility the game was fixed.
Britain's Daily Mail newspaper published extracts of a book by sports-betting journalist Ed Hawkins in which he claimed an Indian bookmaker had accurately predicted what would happen in Pakistan's innings against their arch-rivals.
Hawkins said the bookmaker, Parthiv, sent him a Twitter message during the Indian innings correctly calling that when Pakistan batted, they would reach 100 easily then lose two wickets quickly, reach 150 with five down and lose by more than 20 runs.
India won the match by 29 runs to book their place in the final where they beat Sri Lanka to claim their second World Cup.
Hawkins does not make any specific allegation of match-fixing but cites a statistician as saying the odds of the bookmaker predicting the outcome in such detail purely by chance would be 405 to one against.
Suspicions were raised at the time, particularly over Pakistan's sloppy fielding -- they dropped Indian batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar four times as he made a match-winning 85.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) rejected the allegations in April 2011, saying there was no evidence to require an investigation into the match, but Ijaz Butt, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) at the time, said there should be a probe.
“My suggestion would be that the matter should be investigated,” Butt told a news channel in Pakistan.
“There were a lot of allegations in Indian newspapers and even in Pakistani newspapers but there was no investigation.”
Pakistan were in the thick of a fixing scandal a month before the semi-final when three of their top players -- Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer -- were handed long bans by the ICC for arranging no-balls to order during a Test against England in 2010.
The PCB refused to give any official reaction to the allegations.
Read more
On DawnNews
Comments (78) Closed
Nov 11, 2012 12:14am
no wonder pakistan could not beat india in any world cup
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Nov 11, 2012 12:05pm
prediction might've been easy but how on earth can someone predict india to defeat pakistan by 29 runs plus score 100 runs for the loss of 2 wickets and then reach the score of 150 with the loss of 5 wickets? do u have an answer to that?
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Nov 10, 2012 05:34pm
"The International Cricket Council (ICC) rejected the allegations in April 2011, saying there was no evidence to require an investigation into the match"
If the match winner was Pakistan, ICC would have jumped into it quickly.
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Nov 10, 2012 05:37pm
Shame on pakistani team if it was really a fixed match. How can they be disloyal to their country so many times.
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Nov 12, 2012 03:33pm
I am shocked to see so many pakistanis feel the match was fixed..The reasons they have is Pakistan can not loose against India otherwise, Tendulkar was dropped 3-4 times and India wanted to win the cup so BCCI fixed all the matches including Final..This is as ridiculous as it can get..India did really well in WC'10..They beat Australia in QF, Pakistan in SF and Sri Lanka in the Final. I don't see Australians saying QF was fixed because Australia has beaten India way more than India has beaten them..Just accept the defeat graciously..You will also say Asia Cup match also fixed because Pakistan lost after scoring 329...
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Nov 12, 2012 08:39am
haha you guys never accept you played badly, do you?
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Nov 12, 2012 08:40am
Haha are you serious? Is that your logic? Haha you guys are really funny. So all the matches in world cup between indo-pak since past 2o years have been fixed. haha funny
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Nov 12, 2012 07:31am
not only that, the lbw decision went tendulkar's way too, after the third umpire verdict both ajmal and the on-filed umpire were moving their head in disbelief,
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Nov 12, 2012 08:46am
India beat Pakistan fair & Square.
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Nov 12, 2012 08:47am
All world Cups India beat Pakistan.
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Nov 12, 2012 06:47am
Obviously it had to be fixed... Pakistan playing in India after the Mumbai tragedy for the first time & then imagine a Pakistani team beating the Indians & playing the final in Mumbai. The whole stadium would've been burning if Pakistan had done so. So the governments intervened & controlled the situation.
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Nov 12, 2012 06:12am
Good - Now flog the entire team in Qaddafi Stadium and telecast it live. Would love to watch it from here.
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Nov 12, 2012 12:05pm
When u don't know to dance u blame the floor.
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Nov 12, 2012 12:29pm
Your absolutely right,my friend.
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Nov 12, 2012 03:56am
so now you understand how muck paki cricketers love their country??
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Nov 12, 2012 03:55am
India can only win in a fixed match!!!
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Nov 12, 2012 12:40pm
Did you want say Pakistan government did match fixing
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Nov 12, 2012 01:51am
So u think its better to take bribe n lose rather than playing poor cricket n losing? I hope these are just allegations, no shame in losing, but taking bribe n selling your motherland is pathetic...
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Nov 12, 2012 01:10am
If it is true, Cricket's become American Wrestling.
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Nov 12, 2012 12:43am
Misbah ul haq also batted very slowly in that match as if he was playing a five day test.
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Nov 12, 2012 09:52am
not all games but Only those in which Pakistan has lost...
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Nov 12, 2012 11:04am
If its true then Pakistanis know the art of match fixing. :)
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Nov 12, 2012 02:04pm
Peddarwdy's logic seems to be baffling.India was a losing team so they had to fix the match to save their face from angry Indians and hugary book makers.You always fix to win rather than lose.that India won a fixed match was good for people of the Subcontinent otherwise there would have deaths and demolitions in India.
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Nov 11, 2012 05:03pm
Srilankan team is a professional team, no professional team will get excited in a crucial match. We should not be jingoistic, we should accept the defeat, our guys didn't play well. Its not the first time we are loosing against the Indians. Anyone can raise doubts, but they should claim the truth by providing proofs.
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Nov 11, 2012 04:57pm
Yes, pakistan never looked like winning... they are not a team, they are 11 individuals.
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Nov 12, 2012 02:35pm
if Pakistan loses any match then it's a match fix and if they win then it's qaum(nation) ke dua.
i wonder if there is anything in between for us . Like a regular win or loss in a cricket match
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Nov 11, 2012 04:15pm
Nothing is obvious unless you are at the same spot to take that simple catch. Many other simple catches were also missed by great fielding side like Aussies.
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Nov 11, 2012 04:10pm
Too good? Only, in the eyes of beholder!
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Nov 11, 2012 04:08pm
Everytime Pakistan looses, the match must have been fixed? Are Pakistanis that good? They need to prove that on the ground!
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Nov 12, 2012 02:41pm
Of course it was rigged.
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Nov 11, 2012 03:28pm
Pakistani people are in love with conspiracy theories
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Nov 11, 2012 02:55pm
match was not fixed india played well they deserve win and india is more capabale in handling pressure than pakistan .
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Nov 12, 2012 09:33am
Hope you all realise that a winning team cannot fix, only a losing team can. You cannot pay a guy to score a hundred but can give a lot of money to drop catches, like Younis Khan did.
So, either way you look at it, Indian team is safe and uncorrupt, the suspicion has to fall on Pakistan.
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Nov 11, 2012 07:53am
I guess Butt is right. If it was not fixed, Pakistan would have lost by 100 runs.
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Nov 11, 2012 07:04am
C'mon not again. Why is that match fixing gets thrust into the limelight whenever Pakistan loses a match? India deserved victory in that mztch and Pakistsn did put up a good fight.
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Nov 12, 2012 09:43am
So Younis Khan cheated? I thought among all the Pakistani players he had some integrity.
I am just glad that Indians did not cheat as you know winning teams cannot be accused of corruption. You cannot take money to win, only to lose.
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Nov 11, 2012 06:44am
Disgusting... Representing country and national flag but playing for money..... C'mon show some pride...
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Nov 11, 2012 05:47am
Looks like every game we play is fixed ..
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Nov 11, 2012 05:39am
This is known rumor in Pakistan, immediately after World Cup 2010 Semi Final Match played at Mohali on 30 March 2011 that it was a fix between PCB and BCCI with the backing of their governments. Pakistan was on a winning streak. Afridi as captain had done well. The way Pakistani team behaved in batting, fielding and bowling showed it was a throwaway match. Bowler Wahab Riaz had almost ruin the party when he took four wickets since it was not expected of him to floor the seasoned Indian batting line up. However, Umar Gul played his part well by bowling wide and away giving 69 runs in 8 over without wickets. Beside, full support was given by Misbah ul Haq through his poor fielding & slow and wasteful batting ensuring the match be lost. The rough details are that PCB had agreed to let go the match in favor of India . The price would be resumption of cricket series between India and Pakistan. Since the World cup was organized in India & BCCI backed by Betting Mafia wanted to make it big. They offered a strong lollipop since PCB was feeling ostracized due to security concern in international cricket against Pakistan. It was a good bargain to lose the match and win a place to play against India and resume the series. For the good of the game such like mutually agreed National Decisions are generally done under the carpet. The coming series between Pakistan and India in Dec 2012 is the fruit of the throwaway match. why now, after two years this match is being probed since the beneficiaries of this match were the PCB and BCCI.
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Nov 11, 2012 05:32am
It's not just the semi-final, take a look at the final as well. The body language of the Sri Lankan players was so lack-lustre, where they should have been excited at having the chance to win the world cup. Sanga seemed anguished even behind the stumps. It's as if they had been told to lose the game and let India win. There should be an independent inquiry into this through a globla sports body. The ICC's complete denial also suggests that they may have been privy to this.
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Nov 11, 2012 05:30am
Shame on our cricketers if this is true. They should all be banned.
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Nov 12, 2012 10:01am
hahaha good fiction !
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Nov 11, 2012 04:53am
The way Misbah and Afridi played at the end of innings is enough for me to believe that the match was indeed fixed.
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Nov 12, 2012 10:04am
what else the players could do in your country.........where evey beggar thinks he is the king,general,president of this world whereas in reality lives on alms provided by the rest of the world
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Nov 11, 2012 04:31am
Match was fixed, every knew right on the day of the game. i felt fixing runs much higher and deeper in cricket with board/govt involved in one way or the other. Remember this game was in India at the height of political tensions, this game brought bit of defusion in tensity between the countries, pak playing in india with 2 prim minister's in the crowd, it made all the sense for Pak to let India win the game and record the historical win. May be it would be an order from top not sure but definitly Pak threw that match away and it should be investigated!!!!!!! No way India was winning that game.
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Nov 12, 2012 02:15pm
Tell me one match that you think was not fixed, I can say all the same things that you say about the 2010 semi-final match. Was the match in Asia cup in which India beat Pakistan was also fixed ? or for that matter all the world cup matches fixed in which India beat Pakistan ?
Your brains are fixed, not the matches.
If you really believed that your players fix matches why you continue to support same players in the following matches ?
Just to discredit Indian victory you are ready to accept that the players representing your country took money to underperform in a world cup match played in presence of your Prime Minister ! Thanks for admitting so much.
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Nov 11, 2012 03:49am
I had always suspected that the match was fixed, otherwise that match would have been won by us.
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Nov 11, 2012 03:29am
I have always harbored suspicions at the manner of this defeat. Dropping Sachin four times ? Seriously !
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Nov 11, 2012 03:25am
I am. Sure and was certain that misbah was the culprit as he played unusually slow inning with amounting runrate.the target was easy as India was cheaply bold out and as mentioned four drop catches of Tendulkar. Everything pointing to fixing
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Nov 11, 2012 03:06am
An investigation doesn't hurt if resources are abundant. No harm in providing extra employment if you have money to spend. I am glad that truth will come out now :)
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Nov 11, 2012 02:22am
Match was not fixed. Both teams played well but India prevailed in the end. End of the story.
My question to Mr Butt is that why he did not order an internal enquiry himself while he was PCB chief ?
Because he knows the truth and now he is trying to create problems for PCB when he has been shunted out.
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Nov 11, 2012 02:20am
no doubt in my mind that both pak and sri lanka threw their mataches, its a cup india had to win from the start, amount of advertising revenue that hinged on final and product sales that followed. No wonder ICC are quiet as they are also part of it, Its all about money.
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Nov 11, 2012 12:59am
Mr Butt please leave Pakistan cricket alone your time is over.Do not try to destroy cricket relation between India and Pakistan , which is built by Mr Zakka after putting so much effort into it.
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Nov 11, 2012 12:29am
lol.....pakis got defeated badly at the hands of indians.......they are frustrated and thats y they demand a probe.hahaha
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Nov 11, 2012 10:55am
Pakistan can never loose a cricket match unless its fixed.
Question is who takes the money, so that Pakistan loose the match?
Surely its the opponent team's players who take the money and win the match as well.
Very unfair.
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Nov 11, 2012 11:19am
Butt was an inefficient and corrupt person installed by the country's president. What he says has no worth whatsoever. Investigation into corruption should take place as per laid-down standard procedures to make such processes equitable rather than use a witch-hunt policy or out of frustration. Historically, Pakistan has beaten India more often and has a better international record than India. It is surprising but, I suppose, possible that Pakistan has always been beaten by India in a world tournament.
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Nov 11, 2012 12:29pm
And also that 3rd umpire's assets who gave tendulker not out on DRS.
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Nov 11, 2012 09:04am
I think all india pak world cup matches were fixed as pakistan is too good a team to lose to india in all world cup matches.
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Nov 10, 2012 08:58pm
Cheats and low life corrupt sportsmen are but a reflection of the society at large. I saw the match and agree that there was something fishy about the whole match specially the dropped catches of Tendulker the flat track bully.
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Nov 10, 2012 09:16pm
I disagree - Pakistan lacked confidence and nerves for that big day. They were underprepared to take on India. Most of the batsman , rather than working hard, were relying on divine intervention when the Indian bowlers were approaching them. You could see them reciting Dua's ( I am sure it was one of the Dorod's taught to us by grandmas and neighborhood Moulavis in childhood. The team until the early 90's was not like this at all. Confidence used to ooze out of them. Zia in general and Inzi in particular are responsible for bringing in Islamization to the cricket team. God bless Jinnah's Pakistan, every thing associated to it.
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Nov 10, 2012 07:31pm
There we go again, this Cat and Mouse story of Pakistan lost matches never stop. Looking at the Pakistani average players even I predicted the same....so what is so spectacular about it?????
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Nov 10, 2012 07:31pm
Match was surely fixed!!! Perhaps all matches were played on pre-written script of ICC. Now the Cricket is no more Cricket just Dramas...
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Nov 10, 2012 10:52pm
I don't trust any cricketers these days. I bet there was bet in that match. Someone need to check Omar Gul and Akmal's foreign assets.
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Nov 10, 2012 07:02pm
I think India-England match-tied for no reason should also be investigated.....That was a clear fix-inside out....
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Nov 10, 2012 06:42pm
in either way pakistan is loser only......
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Nov 10, 2012 06:32pm
Pakistan's teams was weaker so prediction was easy. A lot of experts can and do predict accurately so no big deal.
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Nov 10, 2012 06:27pm
wat can we expect from the pak team?????useless fellows!!!!!!!
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Nov 11, 2012 12:02pm
Ok Tell me the meaning of fixing ? Pakistan lost in WC matches and you are saying all of them where fixed . That means Pakistani Players have/had taken money from bookies to lose those matches ( If Pakistani team so good ? I doubt against India .) .So where is the pride ?. Pakistan lost in either way .
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Nov 10, 2012 09:24pm
Here we go again...when will it enddd...
we seriously need to put an end to all this match fixing business, anyone who's found guilty of having a role to play in it should be banned for life...whether it's afridi or tendulkar or whoever...seems as if they're pointing fingers at pakistan though...it is kinda suspicious when a team gives a player like sachin as many as 3 chances...so it's more likely we had a bigger part to play in this..tendulkar went on to make a match winning 85...had we got him out earlier we would've won easily...
but on a serious note even if afridi or whoever is involved, should be banned for life...no 2nd chances, just ban them for good...we certainly don't need corrupt cricketers...
u just never know nowadays as to whether or not they're actually playing properly nowadays...one always has a suspicion that it's all fixed...this isn't how cricket should be...
i can bet next month's tour to india will be fixed as welll...all this crappp needs to be put to an end...enough is enough !!!
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Nov 12, 2012 02:36pm
well,if its true then all the Pak players and Pak board are corrupt, they should be behind bars and be joining their friends in Jail (leaving just the ground keepers to play the matches, I guess they are at least honest and better players) ;-P
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Nov 11, 2012 07:15pm
I too agree... nationalism is less in pakistani team.. otherwise why they would do fixing and evade taxes...
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Nov 12, 2012 09:39am
You do realise that a winning team cannot fix, only losing team can. Are you saying Younis Khan took money to drop a catch? Or, that Umar Gul took money to bowl so badly?
The competence of the Indian or the Pakistan team is the last thing you have to be worried about then. You now have to question the integrity of the Pakistan team.
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Nov 11, 2012 08:53am
The way Pakistan lost and Tendulkar was dropped it was quiet obvious to everyone....
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Nov 10, 2012 08:06pm
It is a fact that each and every match involving Pakistan can be viewed as being fixed regardless of who they play. Unfortunatly pakistan has brought this on themselves and there is little that anyone can do about it. It is a pitty and shamefull yet it is no less than what pakistan cricket deserve. A good game ruined by greed. Genuine players and opporters of the game will continue to suffer.
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Nov 12, 2012 02:36pm
Does it mean the Pakistani team was up for sale and BCCI bought them?
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Nov 12, 2012 10:49am
I totally disagree with match fixing.. becasue even if bowlers fix the match by bowling un-orthodox length still the batsman have to hit for six.. its not easy even if we come to know where the ball would land... result can be either ways..
anyways to tell about india pak match, if it is fixed it can be only for slow battnig by pakistan players (younis khan, razzak, misbah, afridi).. which caused the other players like umar akmal loose thier wickets..
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Nov 10, 2012 04:56pm
Pakistanis cheat
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Nov 10, 2012 04:49pm
I knew it. It was only a matter of time.
Pakistan can never loose a cricket match, unless it is fixed by someone.
My guess is, it is the short man who were dropped four times.
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