Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal issued charge-sheets by ICC

Sources say PCB was totally unaware about the activities of Salman Butt who was elevated to the post of Test captain for the current tour of England after Shahid Afridi had stepped down in the first Test.

LAHORE: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has issued charge-sheets to two of the leading Pakistani cricketers after finding their replies to the show-cause notices served on Aug 21 as unsatisfactory.
Well-informed sources in the PCB told Dawn that the two players are Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal who recently received the charge-sheets issued by the ICC.

“The ICC had issued show-cause notices to both players on Aug 21 and asked them to reply within 14 days. As per the notices, the players were asked to provide their mobile phone numbers which they had used during the World T20 in the West Indies besides some other information,” the sources claimed.

Both the players submitted their replies to the ICC but finding them unsatisfactory, the game’s governing body handed charge-sheets to the two which were delivered at their personal addresses and not through the PCB, sources claimed.

Sources further said that although the PCB had some reports about the wrongdoings of Kamran Akmal, it was totally unaware about the activities of Salman Butt who was elevated to the post of Test captain for the current tour of England after Shahid Afridi had stepped down in the first Test.

Sources said that while the two players were delivered the ICC notices on the same day that Pakistan won the Oval Test, the PCB ignored the importance of the same and, in fact, went onto announce special victory bonuses for the players and the team management.

Meanwhile, sources further disclosed that the succumbing of PCB chairman Ijaz Butt to some influential politicians in the country soon after the Aussie tour debacle resulted in the shameful controversy on the current tour of England.

They pointed out that while the PCB had rightly penalised seven leading cricketers over poor show and indiscipline on the tour of Australia last November, the politicians pressurised Ijaz Butt to acquit as many as four of them — including Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Kamran and Umar Akmal — with only former captain Younis Khan and all-rounder Rana Naved being the two exceptions. Mohammad Yousuf chose to call it a day then without contesting the PCB ban. He was, however, called out of retirement to join the team in England last month.

“The political pressure to exonerate the penalised cricketers was tremendous at the time and some close aides of President Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani were, apparently, involved.

However, the sources agreed that had Ijaz resisted the political pressure then and upheld the penalties imposed by the board’s inquiry committee, he would have become an instant hero in the eyes of cricket fans as well as the critics.

But, unfortunately, he preferred to please his bosses who had played a big role in his appointment as the PCB chief and assured him of an uninterrupted tenure at the office.

The sources added that the very politicians were now asking Ijaz Butt to stay back in England and sort out the present crisis so that the blame is not shifted to their name.

Sources also said that there were strong indications from the ICC that it would come down hard on the PCB this time because it had enough evidence against the players.

“The ICC has been keeping a tight vigil on the Pakistani cricketers for quite some time now but lack of concrete evidence kept it from crackdown action against the players and the officials. However, with British tabloid News of the World exposing a number of suspect activities of some Pakistan players, the ICC is ready to dish out severe penalties now,” the sources said.