Qasim Umar

[Dan]

What's going on with Qasim Umar? Whistleblower or Lunatic?

I've been reading through Brian Radford's book Caught Out - Shocking Revelations of Corruption in International Cricket for school, and there's a chapter dedicated to Qasim Umar's allegations of prostitution, drug taking and bribery surrounding cricket in the 1980s.

I'd never heard it before, so I was just wondering if anyone has any idea if this was some sort of deluded fantasy, or if anything ever came of his allegations. The rest of the book holds up, IMO, but the chapter on Umar and his allegations seemed rather sensationalist to me.

Here's a passage:

He [Umar] then recalled that one Pakistani bowler was paid by a bookmaker to bot play in a number of domestic games, so he faked injuries after the Test matches, took big money for doing it, was able to stay out late at discos and casinos, and ended up with a girl who got pregnant.

 

[social]

Umar's accusations were treated with scorn at the time and he was painted as an eccentric (pretty sure that his hair-styles varied from a shaved head to an afro - remember this was mid-80s), anti-establishment type who had a chip on his shoulder for some reason

With the benefit of hindsight, they probably should've been treated more seriously