Pakistan cricket betting scandal

The Pakistani high commissioner said today he believed the three players under investigation for spot-fixing were innocent, after talking to them in London about the allegations.

Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, who will take no further part in the tour of England, had been summoned to explain themselves to commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan, and the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Ijaz Butt.

After the meeting, Hasan read out a statement saying the men maintained their innocence but had requested their own removal from the remaining matches because of the "mental torture" they had faced.

In response to a question he said: "I believe in their innocence."

When pushed on why he believed they were innocent, he said: "Because they have not been proven guilty."

Hasan said the players were "extremely disturbed with what has happened in the past week".

While speaking Hasan was persistently asked by Pakistani journalists, who believe the team is the victim of a conspiracy: "What about India?"

The three players were met by a media scrum as they arrived at the high commission this morning in four-wheel drives with blacked out windows, and required a police escort to the building.

The Pakistani team manager, Yawar Saeed, said earlier that the players would miss all remaining matches of the tour. Replacements will be called up for the five-match one-day series against England but not for the two Twenty20 matches.

The players' removal from the squad will come as a relief for the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), who will be hoping the move takes the heat off the rest of the tour and stems any protests by fans.
Giles Clarke, ECB chairman and chairman of the ICC's Pakistan taskforce, welcomed the announcement that the players would play no further part and said he hoped the remaining matches would be played in a "competitive spirit".
"I look forward to working with Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, and Ijaz Butt, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, and everyone involved in Pakistani cricket in taking forward cricket in Pakistan so that a proper plan exists for the whole of Pakistani cricket," he said.

The focus will now return to the ICC investigation, although officials will not be interviewing the players until they get the go-ahead from the police. That is likely to be tomorrow at the earliest, which is when the police are next due to question the players.