'ICC needs a match-fixing protocol' - PCB

Shaharyar Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, is keen that former players and officials refrain from unsubstantiated comments regarding the match-fixing issue. Shaharyar said that it would be one of the points that he would bring up in the International Cricket Council meeting in London, for which he left for yesterday.

"We have prepared a proposal," Shaharyar said before his departure, "through which we will press the ICC and its executive-board members to have some sort of code of conduct to discourage former players and officials from making unsubstantiated match-fixing allegations."

Shaharyar added, "We know that the ICC has already said it is not in a position nor does it have any legal framework through which it can prevent former players and officials from giving statements on match-fixing."

But at the same time he wished that the ICC understood the potential damage that these allegations could inflict and wished that they had a protocol in place for such incidents. "Players around the world, including in Pakistan, are being damaged badly because of former players and officials making unsubstantiated and damaging allegations of match-fixing from time to time in the press."

Shaharyar's comments come in the wake of Rashid Latif's remarks regarding the one-day series between India and Pakistan. Latif, the former Pakistan captain, had expressed his fears that the series might have been fixed. That provoked a severe backlash from the board, which contemplated legal action, while Inzamam-ul-Haq threatened to walk out of the team.