Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Trio leaving Pakistan squad for showdown meeting

 

The three Pakistan players embroiled in betting scam allegations were to leave the squad on Wednesday to face cricket and
government authorities, de facto sidelining them from the team.
Test captain Salman Butt, plus bowlers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif, were to leave Pakistan’s training camp in Taunton, southwest England, and head to London for a meeting with officials.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has said it will not suspend them while the allegations are being investigated, though their date in London means they are set to miss the next match, effectively deferring the highly contentious decision over whether they should play on.
Pakistan are due to face county side Somerset in Taunton on Thursday in a warm-up match ahead of their limited overs internationals against England.
Butt, Aamer and Asif are set to miss out as they head for talks with PCB chairman Ijaz Butt and Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan’s high commissioner (ambassador) to Britain.
It is thought the three players will not rejoin the squad until Friday at the earliest.
It appears increasingly likely that they will play no further part in the tour.
Following the Somerset warm-up, Pakistan face two Twenty20 matches against England in Cardiff on Sunday and Tuesday, then five one-day internationals.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has promised “prompt and decisive action” if the “spot-fixing” allegations made by Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper are proven.
Customs officials in Britain said they had arrested and bailed two men and a woman on Sunday “as part of an ongoing investigation into money laundering”. A source confirmed the arrests were linked to the cricket scandal.
They were a man and a woman, both aged 35 and from Croydon in south London, and a 49-year-old man from Wembley in northwest London.
“These individuals were arrested, questioned and have been bailed pending further investigation,” Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs said in a statement.
Somerset chief executive Richard Gould said: “I think in these particular circumstances, we understand.”
The world of cricket has reacted with shock and dismay to claims that huge sums of money had changed hands in alleged fixing schemes at international level, linked to shadowy betting rings.
Investigators from the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit are in Britain looking into the allegations.
Meanwhile former Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson said that while the poverty and violence in the country made corruption understandable, “that does not make it acceptable.”
He said a selector once told him if a certain player was not picked, his own daughter would be kidnapped.
“These things are part of everyday life in Pakistan,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
“When a player is accused of taking money, it could be a case of sheer greed. Or they might want the money to pay for a new generator in their home village.
“Or they might even have been threatened with violence against themselves or a member of their family.”

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