Former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif has defended banned spinner Danish Kaneria, questioning the evidence of spot-fixing against him by claiming that the alleged Indian bookmaker suspected to be close to the bowler has been Pakistan Cricket Board’s official guest on several occasions.
According to Latif, the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption and security unit has yet to prove that Indian Arun Bhatt is indeed a professional bookmaker.
“There are glaring ambiguities in the case/evidence prepared against Danish by the England Cricket Board. One of them is that the ECB has described Annu Bhatt as the Indian bookie, associated with Kaneria, but I have not found his name in the list of established India bookmakers,” Latif said on Saturday.
He then disclosed that Bhatt, in fact, had been a regular guest of Pakistan Cricket Board. “He was a guest of the PCB when India and England toured Pakistan in 2005 and 2006 respectively, and he (Annu) stayed in Pakistan as the PCB’s guest on both the occasions,” Latif claimed.
“Even afterwards, Annu Bhatt toured with the Pakistan team to Sri Lanka, South Africa and the West Indies,” he added.
The ECB disciplinary committee banned Kaneria for life last year after an inquiry into a spot-fixing scandal in county cricket when the spinner played for Essex in 2009 against Durham.
The ECB’s appeals panel also dismissed Kaneria’s appeal but the bowler has now filed another appeal in the commercial court of the United Kingdom against his ban.
Latif, the first cricketer to go public on the match fixing in 1994 while playing for Pakistan, has now taken up Kaneria’s case and believes that the ECB has victimised the leg-spinner who has received no support from the PCB either.