A Pakistani parliamentary committee has summoned captain Younis Khan, coach Intikhab Alam and cricket board chief Ejaz Butt to seek an explanation for the last-ball loss to Australia at the Champions Trophy in South Africa last week.

Jamshed Dasti, chairman of the Standing Committee on Sports in the Pakistani Lower House, told AP that the team lost to Australia to keep India out of the final. Had Pakistan, then already in the last four, won the September 30 match at Centurion, India, who hammered the West Indies in a later game the same day, would have had a genuine chance of going through as well.

“They lost to Australia just to keep India out of the tournament,” Dasti said. “They (the team) underperformed. We will be meeting with them on October 13 as we feel the team deliberately lost the games against Australia and New Zealand (in the semi-final).”

“We have been told by some respected and senior people and we are also trying to collect evidence that there might have been some hanky-panky in the match against Australia and New Zealand,” PTI quoted Dasti as saying. “We will get to the bottom of this whole affair and find out the truth. The nation must know the truth of what happened in South Africa.”

In the New Zealand game, captain Younis Khan — who returned to Pakistan along with coach Alam yesterday — dropped Grant Elliott at a crucial time, a life which the Kiwi allrounder converted into a performance that won his team the match.

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