British tabloids entrap Pakistani cricketers, Britain remains prejudiced
A cloud of match fixing scandals has covered Pakistani cricket for a week, can be a conspiracy cooked by the British tabloid’ “The News of the World”.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, also has claimed that this can be a trap to set up the trio of Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman butt.
The trio has been pulled out of the entire English summer after extensive talks between the ICC and PCB. It is because of the mental stress they are going through. These players are traumatised, and are not in a state of mind to compete at the highest level. PCB has done the professional thing and pulled them out of the tour. They will be stay in England until investigations are closed.
The Pakistani players claim to be innocent. They claim that they have been trapped by the British tabloid because they have been performing very well in the last year. Salman Butt clearly has been Pakistan’s premier batsman this year. He has been the highest run getter for Pakistan, considering all forms of the game. Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, both form a formidable opening partnership with the ball. Both the bowlers have taken 100 wickets together in 11 test matches they have played. Asif, the right arm fast medium bowler has 106 wickets to his name at an impressive average of 24. In the first Test at Trent Bridge, Asif equalled a twenty year Pakistan record, held by Waqar Younis by taking 100 wickets in 20 matches in Test cricket. Asif’s new balls partner, Amir has 51 wickets to his name at an average of 29. At Lord’s, in the fourth Test against England, Amir became the youngest bowler to take 5 wickets in an innings.
There have been occasions in the past where Pakistan’s cricket team has been in the spot light of controversies. Especially in England, but they have come out of all this quite clearly.
In 1992 Test series in England, Pakistan’s two Ws, Wasim and Waqar, were making life difficult for English batsman. English batsman had no answer to Pakistani swing bowling. The duo of Wasim and Waqar took 43 wickets in the Test series in 1992. The two Ws, started to stamp their authority on the World of cricket after that series. The W duo has been regarded by many as the greatest fast bowling pair cricket has seen. Pakistan won that series 2-1. British media didn’t have guts to swallow it. They started to accuse both Wasim and Waqar of ball tampering. British media claimed, “Both have used unfair means to get the swing”. This was proven wrong afterwards because no video evidence was found. They later acknowledged the art and called it reverse swing.
Former England players, Ian Botham and Allan Lamb in 1996, both sued Imran Khan of ball tampering, calling him a racist and ill-educated. They also claimed this is an unfair mean of swinging the ball. Imran has passed this wrong doing to his younger bowlers. Imran Khan later won 500,000 pounds from a legal case against Ian Botham and Allan Lamb.
Imran after winning the case believed, the accusations of ball tampering against the Pakistani fast bowlers would be buried. People around the world will now accept the art of reverse swing as legal. It is not ball tampering he added, it is a true art that Pakistani fast bowlers have inducted into the game.
On the other hand ICC has a clear stance. ICC has charged these players without any evidence shown to the World. The court of the law says, one is innocent until proven guilty. One cannot come to the conclusions before analysing relevant evidence.
Pakistan Cricket has often been cleared of these conspiracies. In the past due to good management and capable leadership, Pakistan cricket has come out of it. All Pakistan cricket needs is strong leadership and management to get cleared of all these controversies.
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