ACB to look into Bacher match-fixing claims

SYDNEY, JUNE 14. The Australian Cricket Board today said it would look into what it called unsubstantiated claims from South Africa's top cricket official that Australian Test players were involved in match- fixing.

Ali Bacher, head of the United Cricket Board of South Africa, told a judicial commission in Cape Town that Australians had been linked to match-fixing by a Pakistani man in a conversation with a South African businessman in April.

The businessman identified the man he spoke to on a Johannesburg- Durban flight as Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar. The Pakistan Cricket Board has said the injured Akhtar was with the Pakistani team on tour in the West Indies at the time of the alleged conversation.

ACB Chief Executive Malcolm Speed yesterday said Bacher had confirmed no one named Akhtar was on the flight in question. ``If he (Akhtar) was on the plane, we'd very much like to talk to him to find out if there's any substance to it,'' Speed said. ``They are serious allegations and they will taken seriously and, if they have any substance, they will be fully investigated,'' he told reporters.

- Reuters

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Section  : Sport
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