Former Pakistan cricketer Mudassar Nazar said on Sunday that his team faced a lot of pressure during the early 1990s because defeat-especially to arch-rivals India-would set off stormy elements again regarding match-fixing back home.
The most successful side of the 90s belonged to Pakistan; they achieved the ultimate glory when they won the 1992 World Cup, crowning off a decade with success in both Tests and ODIs.
Chat around match-fixing somewhat did stir up tarnishing of the image of the Pakistani team of those days. Mudassar believes players became increasingly fearful of public perception.
"I think if you look at Pakistan's team in the 90s, they were, talent-wise, as good as Australia in the 90s. But it was a sheer fear factor of losing the game, and I'm going to be a little bit controversial here," Mudassar said in the closing remarks of the Cricket Predicta Conclave in Sharjah.
"The controversy is behind match-fixing. There was a lot of pressure on the Pakistan team because every time they lost a game, people thought the game was dubious, the game was fixed. Nobody was prepared to accept that they actually lost to a better team," he added.
Mudassar represented Pakistan in 76 Tests and 122 ODIs, scoring 6767 runs and taking 177 wickets across the two formats.
"So, at some stage in the early 90s, I was part of that team which was fearful of losing the game, and that was entirely due to match fixing or fear of people believing the match was fixed," he stated.
A loss against India would make things worse because of the intense rivalry between the two neighboring countries.
"You bring in another variable there, which is the variable of playing against India. No Pakistani, no Indian wanted to lose the game. We have seen that in Sharjah, and that's why India against Pakistan here was such a big event.".
"That didn't happen with the cricket, but perhaps with the general public then. There was tremendous pressure there. The match-fixing saga did not help the Pakistan team much, I'd say, Mudassar commented.
The match-fixing allegations during the mid-90s led to the PCB assigning a judicial commission under Justice Malik Qayyum to investigate the case.
It recommended banning former captain Salim Malik for life for fixing and banning pacer Ata-ur-Rehman for lying.
Some other players were also fined by the commission for not cooperating with the inquiry.
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