LONDON – Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were jailed yesterday for their roles in a spot-fixing scandal which the judge said had damaged the integrity of a game renowned for its fairness.
Former captain Butt was sentenced to 30 months, while Asif was given one year and fellow pace bowler Amir six months as the sporting world was given a strong message that corruption would be punished by much more than fines and suspensions.
The trio were part of a gambling-inspired plot to bowl no-balls at pre-arranged times during a Test match against England at London’s Lord’s Cricket Ground in August 2010.
“The image and integrity of what was once a game but is now a business is damaged in the eyes of all, including the many youngsters who regarded you as heroes and would have given their eye teeth to play at the levels and with the skills that you had,” Judge Jeremy Cooke told the courtroom.
“Now, whenever people look back on a surprising event in a game or a surprising result, or whenever in the future there are surprising events or results, followers of the game who have paid good money to watch it . . . will be left to wonder whether there has been fixing and whether what they have been watching is a genuine contest between bat and ball.”
Sports agent Mazhar Majeed, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to making corrupt payments at a pre-trial hearing, was jailed for two years and eight months at London’s Southwark Crown Court.
Majeed, who implicated another unnamed Pakistan player in court, was trapped in a sting by former British newspaper, the News Of the World which broke the spot-fixing story.
The cricketers, already banned from playing by the International Cricket Council for a minimum of five years, showed no reaction as the sentences were handed out amid strong words from the judge.
“It’s not cricket that was an adage,” Cooke said.
“It is the insidious effect of your actions on professional cricket and the followers of it that make the offences so serious.”
The age-old sport of cricket has much stricter rules than many other team pursuits with a shake of a head at an umpire’s decision often warranting a fine for ungentlemanly conduct.
Butt, 27, and Asif, 28, were found guilty on Tuesday of taking bribes while 19-year-old Amir admitted his part in the scam before the trial started and had also offered a heartfelt apology during the sentence hearing.
The case has prompted calls back home in Pakistan for the game to be radically cleaned up.
“It is a shameful day for Pakistan cricket today,” the country’s former captain Imran Khan told Geo News.
While Butt’s father Zulfiqar said his son – who faces a long wait to meet the baby his wife gave birth to earlier this week – had been made a scapegoat, others said the players had deserved their punishments.
Butt, Asif and Majeed are expected to begin their sentences at Wandsworth prison in south London, while Amir is due to be sent to a young offenders’ institute in west London.
Lawyers for Butt and Amir have said they will be appealing the sentences. (Reuters)
