The hearing of the tainted trio starts in Doha
The anti-corruption tribunal opened in Doha against three Pakistan cricketers Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt and is scheduled to continue until 11th of January.
An official of the international Cricket Council (ICC) told reporters that the hearing had started. He said, “It has just started. All three players are here.”
The players were suspended by ICC following the spot-fixing charges during the England tour. The bowlers were alleged of bowling deliberate no-balls in the match but they denied all the allegations.
All three players arrived at the venue separately. Butt reached there before the start of the hearing and Amir and Asif followed afterwards in separate cars.
The players didn’t talk to the media about the hearing. The three-man tribunal is led by the ICC code of conduct commissioner Michael Beloff. He is assisted by Justice Albie Sachs of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Kenya-c752.
Rao was asked a few questions by the media but he said that it would not be right to comment on anything at that stage since the hearing didn’t start. He said that the future of cricket was bright and in safe hands.
Talking to the media Rao stated, “The future of cricket is good because I think that’s what this exercise is about. So it should be a very clean game and we can rely on the result of this.”
He didn’t comment much on the hearing which was about to start but he just said, “It is very important for cricket but I can’t comment very much on it because we haven’t even started.”
Two of the three suspended players Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir appealed against the suspension by the ICC but they were denied to play any cricket before being cleared and the suspension remained.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 has announced the 30-man preliminary squad for the World Cup and all these three players were ignored following their suspension from the game. It will be interesting to see whether any of these cricketers are able to get clearance from the tribunal
in Doha or not. Amir is the more likely of the three to get some leniency from the tribunal considering his age and lesser experience in the game.
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