Did not say 99 World Cup defeats were fixed, clarifies former PCB chairman

Former chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Khalid Mahmood, has denied saying that the national team's matches against India, Bangladesh and Australia at the 1999 World Cup were fixed, Jang reported on Monday.

Mahmood, in an interview a day earlier, had labelled former fast bowler Ata-ur-Rehman a "liar", saying that had he been truthful in his statement to the Justice Qayyum Commission, Wasim Akram could have been in trouble.

The statement had insinuated that Mahmood thinks the aforesaid trio of matches at the 1999 World Cup were fixed.

However, he has since clarified his stance, saying he only meant that in all three defeats Pakistan's performance was "sub-par and suspicious".

The former PCB chair also said that Majid Khan, who was the PCB CEO at the time, was opposed to the idea of letting players accused of corruption play. However, Mahmood said that his own position was that players cannot be banned until proven guilty.