Cricket: Black Caps games suspect - Crowe

Former New Zealand cricket captain Martin Crowe is suspicious that the Black Caps may have been exposed to a spot of Pakistani "spot-fixing" long before the alleged betting and corruption horrors of the England-Pakistan series were revealed.

Crowe is dubious, specifically, about New Zealand's second test innings against Pakistan in Wellington in December. The Black Caps scored 99 and 263 and lost by 142 runs to Pakistan, who levelled the series 1-1 after losing the first test in Dunedin.

The issue has come to light after this week's shock accusations, produced by a classic News Of The World sting, that Pakistani cricketers collaborated to deliberately produce no-balls at agreed times - allowing bettors to place wagers in the knowledge they could not lose.

Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, and captain Salman Butt have been implicated but have maintained innocence, despite apparently damning evidence. Cricket authorities have banned the three until the matter is resolved; nothing has yet been proved.

The International Cricket Council is investigating 11 New Zealand-Pakistan matches, with the Wellington test certain to be among them.

In Wellington, it wasn't runs, or no-balls or how many players were wearing caps (another "spot-fix" bet) that attracted suspicion. It was dropped catches.

"I was asked if I had ever been suspicious about a match. I replied: 'Often'," said Crowe. "I remember that one in particular. There was a multitude of catches going down. I have never seen a worse fielding side in my whole life - and that includes club cricket.

"I remember in particular [New Zealand batsman] Peter Fulton chipping one to mid-on, where [Pakistani captain at the time] Mohammad Yousuf dropped it. It was an absolute sitter, a dolly."

It has to be said at this stage that test and first-class cricketers do drop simple catches. It can be extremely difficult to judge if a catch is deliberately dropped or just plain muffed.

What has now aroused suspicion is that the New Zealand second innings contained so many dropped catches; many of them simple chances.

In all, there were five dropped catches, a missed run-out and one ball, at an easily catchable height, that eluded fieldsmen who should have caught it. That allowed New Zealand batsmen off the hook time and again. Seven "chances" is an exceptionally high number in one test innings.

"Pakistan won that match comfortably, so I am not trying to say that it was match fixing," said Crowe. "But it does make you think about spot-fixing.

"I have never had a bet in my life, so someone had to explain it to me in terms of how it works. They have things called 'brackets' [defined periods of play during a match] where punters can bet on all manner of things which might or might not happen in that period of play.

"That's what makes me think something could have been up in that test. It was the most pathetic display of catching I had ever seen. We talked about it [the fielding ability] on air [Crowe was commentator for SKY TV] at the time."

Suspicion has been raised even more sharply across the Tasman, regarding the second test in Sydney in January, where Australia made a miracle recovery to snatch the test from an almost impossible situation.

Asif's ex-girlfriend, comedian Veena Malik, told a television channel the bowler was open about his match-fixing arrangements on the tour of Australia. Malik said Asif confessed during a phone call he made to her while in Australia that the team planned to lose the tests, one-day and Twenty20 matches.

"When Pakistan started losing in Australia, I jokingly said, 'For God's sake, win a match'. To this he replied: 'We won't win anything until 2010'," she told the late-night Frontline programme.

In that test, Australia were dismissed cheaply in their first innings for 127, Pakistan made 333 and then Australia made 381 in their second knock. In that innings, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmar dropped four catches, three of them off Australia's century-making hero Michael Hussey, who featured in a brave ninth-wicket stand with bowler Peter Siddle.

Wicketkeepers do drop catches in tests. Four in one innings is highly unusual. Australia were dismissed leaving Pakistan 175 to win - but they collapsed to 139 all out on what was regarded as a reasonable batting pitch. Crowe said his friend and fellow TV commentator in Australia, Mark Nicholas, rang him after the Sydney test.

"He said he had never seen anything like it before. He said [the commentators] all had fears and feelings about what they'd seen and now it looks as though they were probably spot on.

"It just doesn't add up - why play so well for three days and end up playing like that?"

However, it has to be said again that the history of test cricket does show that improbable reverses do sometimes happen - showing the difficulty cricket's anti-corruption brigade face in determining whether a result was real or faked.

Australian legends Rodney Marsh and Dennis Lillee were themselves criticised when it emerged they had bet on the English to win at Headingley in 1981, when Ian Botham cracked a defiant century after England had followed on and Bob Willis bowled England to a remarkable victory.

Just as Australia had been at long odds to win against Pakistan in Sydney last year, the English were 500-1 Marsh and Lillee benefited by $7500 between them after making a small wager in what became known as "Botham's test".

However, there was never any serious suggestion the pair had attempted to engineer the result. Botham's innings had to be seen to be believed and the Headingley pitch that day was far more of a firecracker in the fourth innings than was the SCG for Pakistan.

However, the News Of The World sting has cast doubt on a whole raft of matches. Even in the first innings of the test against New Zealand in Dunedin, (which Pakistan lost) Pakistan dropped five catches - four of them by Imran Farhat in the slips.

In the one day international between New Zealand and Pakistan in Christchurch in 2001, Inzamam ul Haq, a world-class Pakistani batsman, laboured to 37 off 101 balls as Pakistan collapsed to 146 and lost by 138 runs.

This episode has cast a huge stain of doubt over all sorts of achievement.