Former captain Aamir Sohail in his deposition goes on to talk about a repentant Saeed Anwar. Says Sohail,"During the South African tour Saeed Anwar was in good form and was not making runs. When I and Aaquib Javed were sitting with him in the hotel, he said that he knew that he is not getting runs because he has taken money for fixing the match and that has come as a curse from God because after taking oath on the holy Quran he has taken money and therefore he was having curse from God Almighty. We told him that he should pray for forgiveness and pay some Kafara.''

In Rashid Latif's deposition we learn that Salim Malik was apparently so guilty of having indulged in match-fixing and of his fight with vice-captain Latif that he `promised to certain player he would not indulge in match-fixing and was advised by his pir to apologise to Rashid Latif'. This fact was conveyed to Latif by Saeed Anwar.

In fact, after the Outlook expose on the Pakistan enquiry report on the eve of the third Test match in Calcutta, Salim Malik was so shaken that he kept asking a journalist in his room `` ab kya hoga, ab kya hoga'?'' He was also thinking along the lines of giving an interview that showed some repentance for his past acts. The only stumbling block, apparently, was legalese and the fear of a `prison sentence'.

In stark contrast is the attitude of the cricket administrators of both sides. Khalid Mahmood, chairman of the PCB, for instance, claimed in his deposition that the betting issue was raised `deliberately' by the Australians a few months before the 1996 World Cup and that he `would not be surprised if it was just a part of Australian strategy of what they call sledging because Australian cricket is known for indulging in tactics like terrorising the opposition both in field and off the field by something they call sledging'. Mahmood goes on to claim that some ``cricket administrators were also keen to see the present Pakistan team duly changed thereby creating vacancies to accommodate the junior players.''

Of course, Mahmood's tall claims were at least a shade less bizarre than those of our own BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur. After South African coach Bob Woolmer revealed recently in Wisden that the South Africans were approached in Mumbai to `tank' the one-day international match (benefit for Mohinder Amarnath) in 1997, Dungarpur questioned Woolmer's credibility by asking why he hadn't come out with the facts then instead of waiting so long. He also called the whole thing a conspiracy to defame `India'. As if individual corruption of some sportsmen was the only premise for national disgrace.