Prolific batsman Qasim Omar, the only cricketer in the world brave enough to expose publicly the colossal corruption that is tarnishing the game, was banned for seven years by the Pakistan Cricket Board for having the audacity to stand alone and tell the truth. Omar was as fearless with his words as he was with his bat. Nothing and no one deterred him, whether it was the world’s fastest bowler on the fastest pitch, or starchy officials at the International Cricket Council.
A devout Muslim, he decided to blow the whistle on international cricket’s vast network of money-grabbing crooks because his troubled conscience would no longer let him stay silent. Suddenly the game was up. Omar’s precise and colourful revelations sent shock waves through boardrooms and dressing rooms, where the anxious and guilty wondered whether they would be named and shamed in his explosive catalogue of crime.
As rival bowlers had often found, Omar was relentless and devastating in attack, hitting hard, showing no respect for icons or legends, and never worried about wild bouncers from those who resented his candid approach.
Omar confidently strode into the Anti-corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) offices in London and faced Paul Condon and his probing investigators in the same calm, composed way in which he walked to the wicket in Perth to meet the full ferocity of Australia’s hostile pace attack.
I first met Omar in Durham City after I responded to his telephone call to my desk in The People’s investigations department in London. He invited me to meet him next day, and assured me that I would not be disappointed with what he had to tell me. His voice crackled with excitement, and my anticipation was high. He met me at the exit from Durham City railway station and immediately explained that he had married a local girl, Michelle, and lived there whenever he was not playing for the Pakistan national team, or playing club cricket in Karachi, where his mother lived.
We enjoyed a good lunch together and he talked about international cricket in general – like who was the fastest bowler he had faced, and the trickiest spinner – but it was pretty obvious that he was itching to get started on telling me why I had been invited there. Even then, he emphasised and repeated that what he was about to tell me was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He promised that he could produce documents, correspondence, photographs, and even film footage to verify what he said.
With relish, he declared: ‘I want to tell everything because it’s been on my conscience for so long. I took money for throwing my wicket away, and I’m ashamed of myself. I want all Pakistan’s cricket scandals brought into the open so that the country’s rulers can penalise cheats so heavily that young players will be too scared to get corrupted.’
Before meeting Omar that day I had checked his career record and found that he was born in Kenya, but his mother was a Pakistani, which qualified him to represent the country at cricket. He had played in 26 Test matches, and 31 One-day Internationals, and alongside such brilliant performers as Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Salim Malik, Zaheer Abbas, Abdul Qadir, Sarfraz Nawaz and Javed Miandad, who later became the Pakistan team coach.
Literally putting his hands up, Omar shamefully began by confessing to using a jagged bottle-top to damage the ball to help Pakistan beat England in a Test match in Karachi in 1984. He further revealed that officials instructed staff at the ground to pour buckets of water onto the pitch after everyone had left in the evening, and to roll it into the turf so that it would dry overnight to help ace spinner Abdul Qadir to mesmerise the formidable England batting line-up next day.
Pace bowler Sarfraz Nawaz benefited most from having the ball scratched, and it swung so sharply that left-arm seamer Azim Hafeez was unable to control it and had to be removed from the attack. Omar’s revelation of the immense illegal assistance that was given to the bowlers explained why Pakistan were able to triumph by three wickets, with Qadir bagging eight victims, and Sarfraz returning phenomenal figures of 4-42 in 25 overs, and 2-27 in 15 overs.
Wisden, world cricket’s redoubtable bible, reported at the time: ‘Gower excepted, England had little defence to [Qadir’s] mixture of leg-breaks, top-spinners, and googlies…’ And it continued: ‘Sarfraz skilfully persuaded an ageing ball to swing…’ Omar stressed that Sarfraz did not personally use a bottle-top at any time to achieve his remarkable figures.
England’s stitched-up squad was Bob Willis (captain), David Gower, Ian Botham, Mike Gatting, Allan Lamb, Derek Randall, Graham Dilley, Norman Cowans, Graeme Fowler, Nick Cook, Vic Marks, Chris Smith, Neil Foster and Bob Taylor (wicketkeeper).
Zaheer Abbas, for many years Gloucestershire’s registered overseas player, led Pakistan, who won the three-match series 1-0, with the two subsequent Tests ending in a draw. It was also Pakistan’s first home series victory over England in 13 years. Gower took over as captain when Willis returned home early with a viral infection, and he was the only England batsman to score a century in the series, with Lamb suffering most with a depressing average of just 15.60 runs.
Omar slowly and carefully recalled how the astonishing plot to cheat England in Karachi was first discussed during a drinks break in Brisbane a few months earlier while Pakistan were locked in battle with Australia. He said: ‘We had about three months to prepare, and four senior players discussed how England could be beaten if we did the job properly. They said that at least one player would have to use a metal bottle-top to scratch the ball to make it swing more than it normally did.
‘We started to use bottle-tops against Australia, but the pitches were usually flat and hard down there, so we couldn’t take advantage of what we were doing. Schoolboys as young as 12 get to know how to use a bottle-top in Pakistan, and they’ve come to think that it’s all part of the game.
‘England had never won a Test in Karachi, and that’s how we wanted it to stay. Metal bottle-tops were left on our dressing-room table, and I was told to put one of them in my pocket and to use it whenever I got the chance. I had seen other players doing it, so I agreed to cooperate and to do my best.
‘England batted first, and I used the bottle-top from the first over, and it worked brilliantly for us. Then, when I went back from my hotel to collect my squash racket from our dressing room later in the evening, I saw people pouring buckets of water onto the pitch, and someone was going up and down with the roller.
‘They had waited until everyone had left the ground, and I straight away realised that they were doctoring the pitch for our spinner Abdul Qadir. I was disgusted, and I rushed out to the groundsman, and said, “Why are you doing this to the pitch? It’s against the laws.”
‘He said that he had been told to do it, and that he was sorry, but he had a wife and children to feed, and that if he didn’t do it, he would lose his job. He even advised me to keep my nose out of it, as it was a very old practice. In any case, what they did to the pitch almost backfired on us because when it dried out England’s spinner Nick Cook looked like winning the game for them with his slow left-armers. Both teams struggled on a very difficult pitch, but we scraped home by three wickets after all had seemed lost for us.
‘It was a very hot day with no clouds. They were poor conditions to get the ball to swing, but it went all over the place. Sarfraz Nawaz, who had nothing to do with the bottle-top business, did brilliantly in both innings.’
England were shot out for 182 in their first innings, and for only 159 when they batted for the second time. David Gower struck 58 and 57, but no other England batsman reached 30. Spinners Abdul Qadir with 5-74 and 3-59, and Nick Cook 6-56 and 5-18, found conditions ideal for them, as did Pakistan off-spinner Tauseef Ahmed, who also picked up four wickets. The two drawn Tests were played at Faisalabad and Lahore.
Omar recalled that Botham was always complaining that Pakistan cricketers were like old women, and he agreed. ‘We were worse than old women!’ he snapped. ‘All we did was bicker and argue among ourselves. While I was in the team, we couldn’t have a conversation about cricket without bringing up different ways to cheat. I was in the team when we cheated against Australia, New Zealand and India. Bottle-tops have been part of our club cricket, and even school cricket, for a very long time.’
At this point I recalled standing on the boundary at a Thames Valley League match on a Saturday afternoon in Slough when their young, wicket-taking Pakistan pace bowler shuffled up to me at the end of his over and whispered: ‘Do me a favour, mate, look after this for me. I think the umpire might have seen it…’ And he rapidly slipped a metal bottle-top into my hand.
‘You rotten cheat,’ I thought, and I later warned him that if I ever had reason to think that he was using that bottle-top again, or anything else to damage the cricket ball, he would be reported to his club, and to the League, and would inevitably be banned for a long time.
Omar admitted to having lots of differences with his captain, Imran Khan, and even refused to tour India with him because of their bitter rows, but he still regarded him as the most positive leader he had ever played under. Omar said: ‘Though he later admitted to tampering with the ball in matches, I never heard him tell players to cheat. Some of our players tried to con umpires into thinking that batsmen had been caught by a close-in fielder when they knew for sure that the ball had gone nowhere near the bat. One of our guys was really bad, and would jump up and down shouting “Howzat! Howzat!” and he tried to get us all to do the same as him. There was no limit to what some of our players would do to win matches.’
According to Omar, the biggest earner was a batsman who deliberately gave his wicket away in return for a large cash bung from an illegal bookmaker or gambler. He said: ‘Players have made big money from telling bookies and punters how they would be dismissed. Deliberately giving their wicket away without scoring has always been the best earner. Being bowled or run out also pays well.
‘Corrupt captains have pocketed up to the equivalent of £1,500 just for saying whether he would bat, or bowl, if he won the toss. I’ve done it myself. I’ve given my wicket away for money, and now I’m disgusted with myself. One bookie tried to bribe me after I’d scored 210 in a Test match against Sri Lanka in Faisalabad. He came to my mother’s house in Karachi and said that, as my place in the team was safe, I could earn £1,000 in rupees if I got myself out for nought in the next Test. He said everyone was doing it, and that some of our big names were earning up to £5,000 in Pakistan currency. It was very tempting, but I turned him down.’
Omar produced from his black briefcase a sheet of paper with a list of fees for players who cooperated with bookmakers. It had been converted from rupees into pounds sterling to give a clear idea of what was on offer:
• £5,000 run out first over.
• £3,000 bowled first over.
• £2,000 stumped in match.
• £1,000 run out in match.
• £500 caught or lbw first over.
• £1,000 concede boundary in first over.
• £500 to bowl a wide or no-ball in first over.
• £1,500 for decision on winning the toss.
• £500 for naming opening bowler.
• £500 for stating which end of the ground first over would be bowled.
• £1,000 to drop a catch.
Omar made it clear that distance was no problem for Pakistan bookmakers, who flew to be with players while they were on tour in England, Australia, India, Sir Lanka, the West Indies, and even as far as New Zealand. With a mischievous chuckle, he talked about the brazen bookmakers who, totally ignoring Pakistan’s strict no-gambling laws, opened shops in the main streets and filled their windows with sports goods, furniture or lace items, while up to ten people would be crammed in a back room taking bets direct from cricket grounds all over the world.
Omar laughed when he revealed that bookmakers even had a room at the back of a Karachi hospital: ‘It was a big gambling den. A film producer ran it at first. Then his son took over. I went there a few times, and I even had a lift in an ambulance when I was late for a flight.’
Pakistan umpires who officiated in club matches were also deeply involved and on the take, according to Omar, who said: ‘I remember the day when the ball brushed my pads, and the wicketkeeper put out a massive appeal for a catch, which the umpire turned down, and I went on to make a big score.
‘Later that evening the umpire rang me up, and said: “Congratulations on your score… but that was a big appeal early on, wasn’t it?” I realised immediately what he was implying. He went on to say that he needed a couple of new umpiring shirts, so I went straight out and bought them for him because I had enough sense to know that he could do me a lot of harm if I didn’t look after him.
‘Another umpire asked me to bring a particular gift back from Sri Lanka for him on my first tour of that lovely country, but when I handed it to him, all beautifully wrapped up in pretty paper, and told him how much he owed me for it, he smiled and said: “Go home and relax… When you next bat in front of me, you’ll be all right.”
‘I was in a room once when I heard a Pakistan umpire tell a bowler, who was standing next to me, that if he struck this particular batsman on the pads in a match that was coming up, and appealed for lbw in a big way, he would give him out, because he didn’t like him.
‘They’d had a big fall-out in a recent match, and he wanted to show him who was the boss. I knew the batsman well, but there was nothing I could do to help him. And if the umpire had got to hear that I had tipped the batsman off, he would definitely give me a dodgy decision when I next played in front of him.
‘During the match, the ball did strike this batsman’s pads, though it was well wide of the stumps, but the bowler appealed, as he had been advised to do, and the umpire’s finger shot up without a moment’s thought. The batsman understood what had happened, and he later took a nice gift to the umpire, and their rift was healed, and they became good friends after that.’
Indian umpire Uday Vasant Pimple was just 20 years old when he died from serious head wounds after a wicketkeeper went wild and attacked him with a stump because he turned down an appeal for a catch during a club match in Nagpur.
Omar believed Pakistan’s international wicketkeeper Salim Yousef often went too far with his appealing, and recalled an unpleasant incident involving England’s beefy all-rounder Ian Botham. Still livid about it, Omar protested: ‘We all could see that the ball had hit the ground before Yousef caught it, but he kept running around claiming it was a fair catch. I was disgusted with him.
‘Viv Richards also threatened to beat him up after he’d spent all afternoon appealing for catches. Viv was furious, and screamed at him: “If you appeal once more, I’ll give you such a hiding you’ll never play cricket again.” I don’t think Viv really meant it, but I stepped in and cooled him down, just in case. I actually went further than Viv, and I did beat him up in his hotel room in Lahore.
‘Yousef had tried to disturb my concentration all through my innings in a club match, and I told him that if he didn’t stop nattering I’d sort him out later. So I went to his room, dragged him from his bed, and gave him a pasting that he’ll never forget. Two of our players heard the noise, and had to burst in and drag me off him.
‘But he wasn’t so lucky when he upset batsman Sajid Abbasi, who pulled a stump from the ground, and cracked him across the head with it. Blood gushed everywhere, and Yousef had to be rushed to hospital for lots of stitches.’
Even groundsmen who prepared pitches at Pakistan club grounds were able to boost their earnings by taking bribes. Omar recalled being the captain of a side that arrived to compete against a team that included the brilliant Abdul Qadir, a legend among Pakistan spin bowlers. Omar remembered it well: ‘We immediately noticed that two pitches had been prepared for the match. One was a proper batting strip, and the other was very rough. Perfect for a spinner.
‘The groundsman came up, and chatted about them, and when we refused to pay him he said the match would be played on the rough one. Abdul Qadir ran straight through us. He was unplayable. We were hammered for refusing to be part of a bribe.
‘It’s common practice in Pakistan to find groundsmen asking for money or gifts to prepare a pitch to suit a particular team, and they can end up with a smart new shirt, or a pair of shoes, or something useful for their home.’
Omar was well known in cricket circles as a powerful match-fixing broker who could summon up a bookmaker with a click of his fingers. If a player needed cash, Omar was the man to contact. Bookmakers did exactly the same with him when they wanted to take a player on board for a major bet.
There is no doubt that the biggest and most audacious request Omar ever received to organise a crooked deal came from a wealthy Karachi bookmaker shortly before the Pakistan tour party set off for a Test series in Australia. Omar was handed 2,000 American dollars in advance as a deposit for bribing Australia’s star batsman Greg Chappell to throw his wicket away in as many matches as he would agree to.
Vividly recalling the moment the bookmaker approached him, Omar said: ‘He came to me after big bets had been placed on Chappell to score lots of runs in the series. Pakistan had several good bowlers missing, and it was a poor attack, so the way was open for Chappell to fill his boots. Some of our players were expecting him to hit at least three centuries against us.
‘The bookie asked me to talk Chappell into accepting $25,000 to get himself out for less than 30 runs, and that he’d be paid a further $25,000 if he did it again. It would be $25,000 every time he did it.
‘Before we reached Australia our team had a night’s stopover in Singapore where I spent $1,000 of what I’d been given on duty-free goods. The bookie rang me at our hotel on the evening before our first match to wish me luck with my approach to Chappell, and he was one of the first players I saw practising in the nets next morning.
‘I had always looked up to Chappell as a great batsman, and he was something of a hero to me. Until then I had only been able to dream of watching him play, but now I had to approach him and offer him money to play badly, and I had already spent $1,000 dollars of my fee, so I had to find the courage from somewhere. But I panicked, and couldn’t go through with it, so I now had the problem of finding the $1,000 dollars that I had already spent to pay the bookie back.
‘He kept trying to reach me on the phone at my hotel, but I didn’t take his calls, and I thought I’d heard the last of it until we reached Perth, and he turned up from nowhere and said that he had booked dinner for the two of us at the Sheraton Hotel. While we dined and chatted he handed me an envelope with 3,000 dollars in it, and said that massive bets had been placed in Pakistan and India on Chappell scoring lots of runs in the Test matches.
‘I told him I didn’t have the courage to speak to Chappell, and I wanted him to take his money back, but he said: “Don’t worry. Keep it as a gift. There’ll be other times.” He was right. There were other times, many of them, and he was always generous.’
Omar provided film footage to a leading Australian television company of him twice deliberately throwing his wicket away, and in the second incident, a perceptive commentator was right on the mark when he observed: ‘That certainly looked like a premeditated shot!’
Fortunately not all international cricketers are greedy and corrupt, and Omar named several who had rejected his lucrative offers from bookmakers to take bribes. Among them were Indian all-rounders Ravi Shastri, who also played for Glamorgan in the English championship, and Sandip Patil, as well as West Indian off-spinner Clyde Butts.
Omar recalled asking Shastri to get himself out for a low score in a Test match at Lahore, but he hit back sharply with: ‘You’d better find someone else. I’m not into that type of thing.’ Patil was asked to give his wicket away for fewer than ten runs in a Test match at Faisalabad, but he brushed Omar aside and scored a century.
Omar approached Butts before a Test match in Karachi and told him that a bookmaker would pay him big money if he guaranteed conceding a boundary in his first over. With a shrug, Omar recalled: ‘I told him that it was only one bad ball in a lifetime and that he could pick up a lot of money for doing it, but he turned me down. He took several wickets in our innings, including mine when I popped a catch to silly mid-on.’
One of the most brazen attempts at cheating took place in an important Pakistan club match when a furious captain took all his players off the field and refused to finish the game. Omar smiled, as he recalled: ‘The match ball was struck over the boundary and no one knew exactly where it had ended up. Then the batting side’s 12th man suddenly ran onto the field holding up a ball, saying that he had found it near the pavilion, and he threw it to the umpire.
‘But the fielding side’s captain protested that this was not the match ball that had gone missing, pointing out that it was far too worn to be the match ball, and he took his players off the field. Several weeks later the Pakistan Cricket Board banned him for six months and fined the team manager 1,000 rupees.’
Pakistan officials seemed to have a problem in deciding how to deal with downright cheats, and in many cases preferred to penalise the people who stood up for justice and fair play, and incredibly allowed the charlatans and crooks to escape without question or reprimand.
Omar then lifted the lid on what was yet another common ruse: ‘Captains would often pick up the coin from the ground before a match and say “heads” when it was “tails” because he wanted to lose the toss to please a bookmaker who would have taken bets on it. I’ve done it myself.
‘Aqeel was the first bookie I worked for. He owned a supermarket in Karachi, and several factories. He was very rich. One of my best bookies was Shafiq Ahmed, a good guy who had a top job in a national bank in charge of sports events. I did lots of fixing for him, especially in big club matches. Most of his clients were wealthy businessmen who had accounts at his bank, and they would bet on cricket in rupees up to the equivalent of £20,000.’
Omar said that he often warned Shafiq to be careful that the bank didn’t find out about his betting, but he got caught and was sacked. He was very angry with his bosses because he thought he was safe, especially as a number of the bank officials knew what he was doing and had let him carry on.
There were times when Omar felt that Shafiq was passing his very good ‘inside’ information on to certain people high up in the bank, and it was probably for that reason that they hadn’t stopped him, and feared that something must have gone badly wrong for them to fire him, as he was a great source of private income for them.
Tariq Qamar was another big bookie who did a lot of business with Omar, and the high-scoring batsman recalled an occasion when Tariq wanted to bet that Omar wouldn’t score his third double century of the season in a club game, and Omar passed a message to him during the lunch break that he could take as many bets as he liked because he would definitely get himself out before he reached this milestone.
Omar remembered it well, and said: ‘When I reached 179 it seemed a good time to go, so I hit the ball high in the air, and straight down the ground, and was caught at long-off. Two days later, Tariq came to see me and paid me £600 in rupees.’
Qaurruddin was another wealthy bookie who went all over the world with the Pakistan team and he handed Omar large sums of money to share among players who agreed to do various things in matches for him.
Omar insisted that the scale of corruption was huge and that it went far deeper than the people in authority could ever imagine, and he added: ‘Pakistan officials have always known that players take money from bookies. An official found out about me and said that I could carry on, but to make sure that I never got caught. One Mr Big was based in Sharjah, and he masterminded many great betting coups from there.
‘The truth is, bookies have run Pakistan cricket at all levels for years and years, and they are still running it. Betting is huge. No one will stop it. Just about everyone who plays the game in, and for, Pakistan see cheating as part of the game.
‘I saw it, did nothing about it, and joined in. I took bribes and deliberately got myself out for bookmakers. I’ve been an agent for bookmakers. I’ve introduced them to players so that they can do deals to cheat for money.’
Now full of remorse, Omar confessed that he was delighted when he eventually came to his senses and realised what a ‘greedy, horrible fool’ he had been, and stopped.
He went on: ‘I admitted that I had done lots of wrong things in cricket, and that I could no longer continue to be a hypocrite. It was the best decision I ever made in my life.’
Qasim Ali Omar was born in Nairobi, Kenya, on 9 February 1957. A flamboyant right-handed batsman, he played in 26 Test matches and 31 One-day Internationals for Pakistan between 1983 and 1987. He scored two double centuries, one century, and five 50s.
His highest score was 210 against India at Faisalabad in 1984/85. It was also a record individual Test score at Faisalabad, shared with Tasleem Arif, and part of a record second-wicket partnership of 250 with Mudassar Nazar.
Omar later scored 206 against Sri Lanka, also at Faisalabad, in 1985/86. He scored 642 runs in One-day Internationals, which included four half centuries, including his highest score of 69. Omar also played as a professional for Burnhope Cricket Club in the North Durham League in England when not involved in the Pakistan domestic season.
In addition to Omar, the rapidly developing cricket nation of Kenya proudly spawned Maurice Odumbe, a flamboyant captain who, at his peak, owned three top-of-the-range BMWs and a Mercedes, rented a mansion, was flushed with money, and enjoyed a lifestyle observers felt could not be sustained by the earnings of a professional cricketer, even if he was the best in the country.
It was such an imbalanced financial situation that tongues wagged with deep suspicion about how he could possibly manage to fund it all while also spending lavishly on his wife and two children, and two stunning girlfriends.
So it came as no surprise when news broke that Odumbe was under investigation by the International Cricket Council for alleged links with bookmakers, and a dossier of overwhelming evidence was produced at an ICC tribunal in Nairobi in August 2004 when the fallen star faced 12 charges of fixing matches and associating with bookmakers.
Justice Ahmed Ebrahim, a former Zimbabwean Supreme Court Judge, who presided at the four-day hearing, concluded that Odumbe had had ‘inappropriate contact’ with a known Indian bookmaker, and he banned him for five years for bringing the game into disrepute, a decision that was fully backed by the ICC and the Kenyan Cricket Association.
Problems escalated for Odumbe when his former wife, Katherine, told the hearing that she had collected thousands of United States dollars on his behalf, and alleged that six other Kenyan players had also each received 5,000 dollars from the bookmaker who had paid her husband.
Katherine, a schoolteacher, was summoned to attend as a witness, and testified that a bookmaker’s agent had approached Odumbe to throw a match, and that six of the team were invited to be involved because he couldn’t do it alone.
It was the close relationship between Odumbe and the bookmaker that Katherine claimed had destroyed their two-year marriage, and she revealed: ‘I was very unhappy about their relationship because Maurice had said that this bookmaker was a gangster, and I did not want any friendship with that person because I disapproved of the match-fixing business.’
Katherine recalled one occasion when Odumbe sent her to collect 10,000 United States dollars from the bookmaker at a Nairobi hotel, and she told the hearing: ‘He handed me a roll of American dollars. I was uncomfortable, and I expressed concern about all this money.
‘I was worried that I was participating in something I did not know, but he said the money was for a pharmaceutical business. This is no business I am aware of. The only pharmaceutical was medicine for Maurice’s mother, who was ill with hypertension.’
One of the main allegations against Odumbe was that he accepted 5,000 United States dollars to fix a match against Zimbabwe.
During his summing up, Justice Ebrahim said: ‘Mr Odumbe has shown himself to be dishonest and devious in relation to the game of cricket. He has been callous and greedy.
‘There is no suggestion that he was in dire need of money. The evidence, if anything, shows him living a lifestyle of pleasure and irresponsibility. Far from taking the dire warnings of the consequences of such behaviour, Mr Odumbe chose to thumb his nose at [the ICC] and continued his dishonest ways. He has exhibited no remorse. He has not indicated any intention to mend his ways. Indeed, he has chosen to cast doubts on the honesty and integrity of people who have despised his behaviour.’
Malcolm Speed, who was then Chief Executive of the ICC, accepted the Ebrahim Report with extreme concern, and said: ‘It highlights that the risk of corruption remains very real, and everyone must be alert to the dangers.’
Odumbe was found guilty on 12 charges:
• associating with a known bookmaker
• admitting to receiving 5,000 United States dollars for fixing a match in Zimbabwe
• receiving 10,000 United States dollars in cash from a known bookmaker in June 2002
• receiving 8,000 United States dollars in cash from a known bookmaker on an unspecified date in 2002/03
• accepting that he received 5,000 United States dollars to fix a match
• accepting 6000 rupees (approximately 130 United States dollars) during a stay in an Indian hotel in May 2002
• accepting 317 rupees (approximately 7 United States dollars) when checking out of an hotel in November 2003
• accepting hotel accommodation in India in January 2002 from a known bookmaker and/or his associates
• accepting hotel accommodation in India in May 2002 from a known bookmaker and/or his associates
• accepting accommodation at the Sun-n-Sand Hotel in India in October 2002 from a known bookmaker and/or his associates
• accepting hotel accommodation in India in October 2002 from a known bookmaker and/or his associates
• accepting hotel accommodation in India in November 2002 from a known bookmaker and/or his associates.
Odumbe was a right-hand batsman and off-spin bowler who played in 63 One-day Internationals, struck a career best 207 against the Leeward Islands, and was Man of the Match in three consecutive World Cup tournaments.
When the five-year ban was imposed, Odumbe was 35 years old, so the suspension effectively ended his international career, and he promptly sold his three cars, left his mansion, and moved into a flat. Despite the vast volume of evidence, he argued that the verdict was ‘ridiculous and unfair’.