Pakistan spot-fixing jury told judge will accept majority verdict

Jurors in the cricket spot-fixing trial have been directed that a majority verdict after two days of deliberations over the charges against Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif would be acceptable if they are unable to reach a unanimous verdict. Butt, a former Pakistan captain, and the one-time world No2 bowler Asif were accused of cheating at gambling and accepting corrupt payments relating to events at Lord's in the fourth Test between England and Pakistan last year. The pair deny wrongdoing. Having retired to consider their verdict after almost four weeks in court last Thursday, the six-man and six-woman jury were told at 3.24pm that Mr Justice Cooke would accept a verdict in which at least 10 of them agreed, before being sent home for the night around half an hour later. Butt and Asif were charged after an undercover reporter allegedly recorded the sports agent Mazhar Majeed, now 36, boasting of how he could arrange for Pakistan players to rig games for money, London's Southwark crown court was told. Over three weeks of evidence, the jury heard that there are huge sums to be made by fixing cricket matches for gambling syndicates. The allegations emerged after the News of the World's former investigations editor, Mazher Mahmood, approached Majeed in August last year pretending to be a wealthy Indian businessman seeking major international cricketers for a tournament. After gaining the agent's confidence, the journalist broached the subject of rigging games. Majeed claimed he had been carrying out match-fixing for two and a half years, the court heard, had seven players from Pakistan's national side working for him, and had made "masses and masses of money". He told the undercover reporter that fixing part of a match would cost between £50,000-£80,000, but rigging results was much more expensive – around £400,000 for a Twenty20 game and as much as £1m for a five-day Test. The agent was secretly filmed allegedly accepting £150,000 in cash from the journalist as part of an arrangement to rig games. Butt and Asif deny conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments.