Former Pakistan opener Nasir Jamshed pleads guilty in bribery case

Former Pakistan opener Nasir Jamshed has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to bribe fellow cricketers in the Pakistan Super League (PSL). Consequently, he will be sentenced in February next year. Jamshed’s fall from grace has been really surprising. Nasir had the world at his feet after he scored two consecutive ODI tons in India and followed it up by another one in the Asia Cup few months later.

But things just did not pan out as expected before he decided to indulge in corruption. The 33-year old was given a ten-year ban by the PCB in August 2018 and is standing trial at Manchester Crown Court, following his arrest in February 2017 alongside two UK nationals, Yousef Anwar, 36, and Mohammed Ijaz, 34.

Nasir Jamshed scored close to 2,000 international runs

In January this year, Nasir Jamshed had pleaded not guilty of the bribery charges. However, on the opening day of the trial, he chose to change his plea. Jamshed changed his decision after his two co-defendants admitted offering financial inducements to PSL players, with a view to them under-performing during various matches in the competition.

According to ESPNCricinfo, prosecutor Andrew Thomas QC told how an undercover police officer infiltrated the spot-fixing network. As a part of the investigation, the undercover cop secured an initial meeting with Anwar by posing as a member of a corrupt betting syndicate.

During the same investigation, the officer found out that there was an attempted fix during the Bangladesh Premier League in 2016 and an actual fix in the PSL fixture between Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi in Dubai on February 9.

And it was Jamshed who convinced the players to underperform. The ex-cricketer persuaded his former Pakistan teammate Sharjeel Khan to play out two dot-balls to order from the first two balls of Islamabad’s second over. PCB had later banned Sharjeel for five years.

In January this year, Sharjeel accepted all five charges laid against him by the Anti-Corruption Tribunal of the PCB in a desperate attempt to make an early comeback to domestic cricket. The court also heard how Jamshed himself had been the intended fixer during the BPL contests when he and Sharjeel were both playing for Rangpur Riders.

Before being banned, Jamshed played 2 Tests, 48 ODIs and 18 T20Is. Overall, he scored close to 2,000 international runs with the help of three centuries and 10 fifties.

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