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Asif, Amir and Butt: The tainted trio is back

International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday confirmed that the bans on Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt for spot-fixing will expire on September 1, 2015.

They all will be eligible to return to competitive cricket, at both domestic and international levels, on September 2 after fulfilling the specific conditions laid down by the independent Anti-Corruption Tribunal.

Mohammad Amir

Is this good news or a bad news? Can they be same productive like they were before? A divided house seems to have emerged in Pakistani cricket fraternity over whether they should be allowed to represent the national team again.

Rashid Latif, the former Pakistan captain and match-fixing whistle-blower has criticised former players and experts for backing Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman. In a press briefing he said : “I will not support their comeback to international cricket simply because they will replace someone who might not be as talented as them but has done nothing ethnically or morally wrong and had not indulged in corruption.” He further was with the view “This is the biggest injustice you can do to players who play clean cricket.”

Mohammad Asif

Yes they’ve done a big mistake but there are many international cricketers who after completing their ban period performed good in international cricket, so why can’t we give them a chance?

In a statement by Asif, he says: “I committed a mistake, for which I have asked for forgiveness from Allah almighty and have also said sorry to the nation, so I am ready to face any more anger and I am sure my deeds and my bowling will change views about me.”

In my opinion, we haven’t been able to produce a good fast bowler after Asif and Amir and I know many will disagree. Many will say we’ve Wahab Riaz, Junaid Khan and Muhammad Irfan, but I disagree as their class ain’t meeting the banned cricketers.

If we get both Amir and Asif in our fast bowlers’ line-up, there is surely a bright chance for Pakistan to perform good in the imminent Champions Trophy and next World Cup.

After completing the punishment, ain’t a thief or thug not allowed to move freely in society? Or can’t live an active life?

Now this would be colossal injustice to them if their talent is wasted and just because they were indulged in spot-fixing, we ignore their skills just by seeing their past corruption.

I’m not saying to simply out the current lot of fast bowlers but if Asif and Amir perform good in domestic cricket, they should get a chance to represent Pakistan again at international level.

Salman Butt

If we keep on looking our past mistakes and keep drubbing for it, we can never move ahead. It’s a good time to open our hearts and think bigger.

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