Disgraced trio “shamed Pakistan”

LONDON, (Reuters) – On a day when Salman Butt should  have been celebrating the birth of his new son with friends and  family in Lahore, the former Pakistan captain was left to  contemplate a possible jail sentence and the death of his  cricket career after being found guilty of spot fixing in a  British criminal court.  
 
Butt and team mate Mohammad Asif could be enjoying their  last night as free citizens for some time yesterday after a  jury decided they were guilty of conspiracy to cheat and  conspiracy to accept corrupt payments for fixing part of a test  match in England last year.  
  

Salman Butt

A third cricketer, teenaged fast bowler Mohammad Amir,  pleaded guilty to the charges before the start of the trial. All  three will be sentenced today.
  
“It is a day of sadness and happiness for us. We are shocked  by this verdict and will fight to the end. But at the same time  God has given us a new life,” Butt’s father, Zulfiqar Butt, told  Reuters after his daughter-in-law gave birth an hour before the  verdict was announced.  

While Butt’s father summed up a bittersweet day for his  family, the three players discovered that they had effectively  been cast aside by the cricketing community after many former  players said they “deserved no mercy” for “shaming Pakistan  cricket”.   

Three cricketers who should have been setting the world  alight with their sporting feats now find their names written  alongside late South African captain Hansie Cronje in cricket’s  ‘Hall of Shame’ for trying to cheat in their sport.   

Mohammad Asif

Yesterday’s findings followed allegations in a British  newspaper that the trio had arranged for deliberate no-balls to  be delivered in the fourth test at Lord’s last year.   

Former Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas said: “These players  have brought a bad name to Pakistan cricket and it is a tragedy  that we saw a day where cricketers had to face a criminal  trial.”  
 
Just over a year ago things had been very different for the  disgraced trio.   
Butt, an elegant left-handed batsman, was given the task of  guiding a troubled Pakistan side out of turmoil when he was  appointed captain in July last year for the second test against  Australia after Shahid Afridi quit the post abruptly.    
     
 IMMEDIATE IMPACT   
Butt made an immediate impact by winning the test, played at  the neutral venue of Leeds in England, by three wickets but the  subsequent series against England brought his 33-test match  career to a premature halt. He had scored 1,889 runs with an  average of 30.46.   
 
Asif, who had made his debut in 2005, had taken 106 test  wickets in 23 matches at an average of 24.36, while Amir had  been tipped to become one of the world’s best bowlers before he  and his two team mates were suspended for at least five years by  the International Cricket Council (ICC) in February after being  caught up in the spot-fixing scandal.    

During a prolific 2010 season, the teenaged Amir was named  man of the match for becoming the youngest player to take a  five-wicket haul in England and he also grabbed 19 scalps during  the four-match series.   
 
In a career spanning 14 tests since his 2009 debut against  Sri Lanka, Amir claimed 51 wickets.   

The ICC bans would suggest that Butt, 27, and 28-year-old  Asif, who has been in trouble with the authorities before after  testing positive twice for a steroid and getting caught with a  recreational drug in his wallet at Dubai airport, have  effectively played their last match.   

Some pundits believe the younger Amir could make a comeback  following the ban. Before the trial started, all three vowed to  return.  
 
They kept up their fitness as a show of defiance but should  they find themselves behind bars, state-of-the-art fitness  centres and personal trainers will be hard to come by.   

It was the second time in just over a decade that corruption  was found to be rampant in cricket after the match-fixing furore  in 2000 when three international captains — Cronje, Salim  Malik of Pakistan and India’s Mohammed Azharuddin — were banned  for life from all forms of cricket.   

Spot-fixing involves a player, or players, agreeing to  perform to order. For example, a bowler might deliberately bowl  consecutive wides in his second over or a batsman could make  sure he does not reach double figures. 
  
Because individual spot-fixing incidents may have no  influence on a game’s outcome, they are particularly difficult  to detect and the Lord’s offences came to the authorities’  attention only after a sting operation in the British newspaper  the News of the World.