LONDON – Former Australian cricketer Shane Warne has accused formerPakistani batsman Salim Malik of offering him huge bribe.

He recently spoke in detail about former Pakistan captain Saleem Malikoffering him a bribe to bowl badly in a September 1994 Test in Karachi,NDTV has reported.

Speaking in connection with his recently published autobiography ‘NoSpin’, Warne spoke about one of the earlier incidents of attemptedmatch-fixing in cricket.

“Saleem Malik offered me 200,000 US dollars, he said it will be in my roomin half-an-hour if I bowl wide of the off-stump and the match was a draw.That’s the bottom line of what he asked,” Warne said.

This revelation is now new as the controversy has been in the public spacesince the mid-1990s. However, it is first time Warne has revealed theamount that was at stake and the way in which the approach was made.

In 1995, Warne, Mark Waugh and Tim May had claimed that they had beenoffered bribes by Malik to lose games during Australia’s tour of Pakistanin 1994.

Pakistani bookie Salim Pervez told Pakistan’s Judicial Commissioninvestigating match-fixing that he had handed Malik a briefcase with$100,000 (Rs 42.5 lakh) allegedly to fix the tournament’sPakistan-Australia match.

Malik had always denied the allegations.