Former captain and middle-order batter, Saleem Malik, had offered to bribe Shane Warne and Tim May huge sums of money in return for bowling poorly during Australia’s tour to the country in 1994-95.
Legendary Australian leg-spinner, Shane Warne, has revealed this ahead of the release of his documentary titled ‘Shane’ which will be aired on Amazon Prime later this month.
According to details, the Karachi Test was evenly poised at the end of play on the fourth day. The hosts needed 160 runs to win while Australia required seven wickets for victory. Warne was relaxing in his hotel room when he received a call from the then captain Saleem Malik who asked him to meet urgently.
Warne went to Malik’s room. The latter lauded the Australian team for giving the hosts a tough time while the Warne expressed confidence that the visitors would get a comfortable victory.
Malik stopped Warne and said that Pakistan couldn’t afford to lose the match as the fans would vandalize the houses of the national players, adding that he has no idea how things work in Pakistan.
After this, the Pakistani skipper offered to pay $200,000 each to Warne and May and asked both spinners to bowl wide of the stumps and avoid taking wickets on the final day.
Warne was so shocked at this that he didn’t say a word for a few minutes. He then verbally abused the Pakistan skipper and slammed the door on Malik’s face before heading to his room.
The leg-spinner was earning AUD 30,000 a year back then but he immediately turned down the six-figure bribe.
The first Test in Karachi ended in the most dramatic fashion. Australia gifted Pakistan the winning runs when their wicketkeeper, Ian Healy, missed an easy stumping chance which went to the boundary as four byes.
Warne, only 25 then, was awarded the best player of the match trophy for his 8/150 in 63.1 overs. Pakistan won the 3-match Test series 1-0 as the next two matches ended in a draw.
Five years later in 2000, Saleem Malik became the first player ever to receive a life-long ban from all formats of the game after he was found guilty of match-fixing.
