Pakistan urged to save future cricketers
Thursday, 3 November 2011
KARACHI, Nov 2 (AFP): Retired stars and ordinary fans united on Wednesday to urge Pakistan to act immediately to save future generations of cricketers from corruption as three of its top players face jail in England.
Former Test captain Salman Butt and paceman Mohammad Asif were found guilty by a London court of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments in a "spot-fixing" betting scam during the Lord's Test in August 2010.
Mohammad Aamer, Pakistan's prodigious teenage strike bowler, pleaded guilty to the same charges at a pre-trial hearing in September.
The worst fixing scandal in more than 10 years was uncovered by Britain's now-defunct News of the World tabloid, rocking the cricketing world and the verdicts have been seen as a strong warning to future generations.
"We desperately need to save our future generations after what happened to Butt, Asif and Aamer," former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif, who blew the whistle on match-fixing in 1995, told AFP.