{"id":9894,"date":"2010-08-31T22:11:34","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T22:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2010\/08\/31\/lawson-backs-pakistan\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T16:48:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T16:48:32","slug":"lawson-backs-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/31\/lawson-backs-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawson backs Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former coach says trio may have been \u2018forced\u2019 into betting scam<\/h3>\n
\"\"FORMER Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson claims the current squad may have been forced into getting involved in the ‘spot-fixing’ betting scandal that has rocked cricket.<\/strong> <\/div>\n

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The accused include captain Salman Butt, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal and star bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir but Lawson has offered his support.<\/div>\n

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The former Australia fast bowler, who coached Pakistan from July 2007 to October 2008, believes criminal organisations target players with non-financial ways of ensuring matches go according to a certain plan<\/div>\n

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In his column in The Sydney Morning Herald, Lawson wrote: “(The allegations) could be related to extortion, threats, and the well-being of (the players’) own family members.<\/div>\n

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“It would not surprise me if illegal bookmakers have told players that if they do not perform X and Y, their families will be kidnapped or harmed.”<\/div>\n

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Lawson believes there could be a host of other external influences that could affect a player’s cricketing loyalties.<\/div>\n

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“I will never condone any form of fixing, but we should consider that a cricketer might not be thinking of personal gain but of getting money to buy a generator for his village because they don’t have electricity,” he added.<\/div>\n

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“I had a lot to do with Mohammad Asif and he was always missing training sessions to look after his sick mother. He has spent a lot of his money on looking after his family.”<\/div>\n

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And Lawson offered words of support for Butt and Aamer, saying: “If Salman Butt is involved in any match-fixing, I would be absolutely stunned. He is a very intelligent, polite guy and has done well since taking over the team.<\/div>\n

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“(And) it would be the greatest tragedy if a young man like Aamer has been led astray.”<\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former coach says trio may have been \u2018forced\u2019 into betting scam FORMER Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson claims the current squad may have been forced into getting involved in the ‘spot-fixing’ betting scandal that has rocked cricket. The accused include captain Salman Butt, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal and star bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}