Pakistan lashed out at the ICC for suspending three of its players facing ‘spot-fixing’ charges and blamed ICC President Sharad Pawar for the suspension.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, threatened to sue the ICC for its unethical decision of suspending the players and said it was trying to make Pakistan a “scapegoat” for its inefficiency.

“The three players requested me to ask the PCB not to consider them for the rest of the series because they wanted to clear their name and honor. I conveyed their request to PCB chief Ijaz Butt who accepted it but all of a sudden the ICC came out with the notice,” he said.

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Cash used in the spot-fixing scandal during last week’s Lord’s Test is understood to have been found in the belongings of Pakistan Test captain Salman Butt, a report said.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Scotland Yard officers would question Butt on Friday over how marked notes were discovered from his hotel room and in his locker at the Lord’s cricket ground.

The money is believed to have been part of 150,000 pounds handed over by an undercover News of the World reporter to the
alleged fixer Mazhar Majeed, the newspaper said.

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Giving a new twist to the spot-fixing scandal involving the Pakistan cricket team, Pakistan High Commissioner Wajid S Hassan on Friday said that the three accused players were “innocent” and Indian bookmakers were involved in the whole episode.

“I found that all these three players were absolutely innocent. They were not involved, they have been taken for a ride and the agent (Mazhar Majeed) was the culprit, in the sense that he was responsible for defrauding some Asian bookies,” Hassan said.

“The British press says Asian but if they were from Pakistan they (British media) would have called Pakistanis, which means some Indian bookies were involved in it. This Majeed allegedly defrauded these Indian bookies and so the newspaper investigated this sort of sting operation through their sources here,” he said.

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In an order to restore the game’s credibility, ICC today charged and suspended Pakistan’s tainted trio of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer under its anti-corruption code in the wake of the spot-fixing scandal.

The International Cricket Council said the three players have been notified officially of the offences they are alleged to have committed and have been provisionally suspended pending a decision on the charges. The PCB had already dropped them from the remaining matches of the England tour.

“In accordance with the provisions of the code, this means they are immediately barred from participating in all cricket and related activities until the case has been concluded,” ICC said in a statement.

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Australian all-rounder Shane Watson has questioned the determination of the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit to expose match-fixing.

Watson said the ICC’s refusal to suspend the Pakistan players implicated in the sport’s latest betting scandal called into question the world body’s ability or willingness to catch -fixers.

He said it was a disgrace to cricket that an English newspaper had to bring to light the most recent scandal and the reported involvement of Pakistan players with bookmakers might be “the tip of the iceberg”.

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The trio, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, who has been alleged in the spot fixing controversy are dropped from the limited over leg of the England tour, as told by the team manager Yawar Saeed. The players are not suspended, he added.

The three players are currently in London, where they are due to meet Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK. The PCB chairman, Ijaz Butt, is expected to be at that meeting.

Speaking in Taunton, where the Pakistan team are to play a warm-up match later on Thursday, Saeed said he had taken the decision, and also called for three replacements. “The T20 squad will remain what it is here this morning, i.e. 13 people,” Saeed said. “When we play the one-day internationals we will be asking for replacements to make the squad up to 16.”

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The National Selection Panel of Australia names the 15-men squad for the upcoming test series against India starting in October.

“While the excitement builds for the forthcoming Ashes, the immediate focus for this squad is the Test series against India,” NSP Chairman Andrew Hilditch told reporters.

“India is ranked number one in Test cricket and there is no harder assignment in Test cricket at the moment than playing India on their home soil. The Australian squad is really looking forward to the challenge.”

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The three Pakistan cricketers should face a life ban if they are found guilty of being involved in a betting scam, Australian leg-spin great Shane Warne said on Thursday.

Captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif have been summoned to London to meet the Pakistan Cricket Board chief and the country’s ambassador to Britain.

Britain’s News of the World newspaper has alleged that several Pakistan players were part of a scam to bowl deliberate no-balls at precise points in last week’s Test match against England.

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After so much of news revealed regarding the match fixing, now Bangladesh’s cricket board has also said on Wednesday that their several senior players had been approached by bookmakers ahead of a Test series with India earlier this year.

According to the BCB’s official, Vice-captain Shakib Al Hasan and opening batsman Tamim Iqbal were approached before the two Test series against India in January, which the home side lost 2-0.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) spokesman Jalal Yunus said the incidents were immediately reported to the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit, in line with procedures.

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Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson rebuffed approaches from the same Mumbai gangster who targeted Shane Watson and Brad Haddin for information during Australia’s tour of England last year.

Watson and Haddin yesterday confirmed a report in the Herald that the gangster, who security sources have linked to illegal Indian bookmakers, made approaches to them during the Ashes and World Twenty20 tournament, all of which were reported to team management and, in turn, cricket’s anti-corruption watchdog.

And it has since emerged that Lee and Johnson were also confronted in the bar of their west London hotel, the Royal Garden in Kensington, while touring Britain last year. Their names were included in reports submitted by Steve Bernard, the Australian team manager, to the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption and security unit.

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