Alastair Cook, England Test captain, wants players found guilty of match-fixing in the future to be banned for life.
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England takes on Sri Lanka in the third and final Test of three match series at the historic Lord’s cricket ground in London on Friday.
The left-armer’s presence in the first Test at Lord’s is sure to stir mixed feelings, at the venue where he agreed to bowl no-balls to order on Pakistan’s 2010 tour – a crime for which he was jailed and served a five-year ban from all cricket.
Amir this week had his visa to return to Britain approved and is due to arrive with the Pakistan squad on Saturday week.
‘He’s got the class to get a big score but until he does it there will be questions, ‘ said Cook of a man who did hit two hundreds in his first coming with England before seemingly becoming overwhelmed by intensity.
“But in my opinion now the ICC should come out and say if you are caught match fixing you are banned for life”.
“If we want to get to where we want to be, which is the best side in the world, these are the games we need to play better in”, he said. His latest near miss came in the second Test at Chester-le-Street last month, when he played a poor shot to be out for 80, spooning a catch to mid-off after batting serenely all afternoon.
Alastair Cook (48no) saw three wickets fall for the addition of 15 runs at the other end on the way to 74 at lunch as England seek a 3-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka.
“They haven’t told me if I’m playing yet”, Perera told reporters at Lord’s on Tuesday after a training session.
Broad’s solitary global hundred came during the 2010 Lord’s Test with an innings of 169, a feat overshadowed when, on the final morning of the match, news broke of Butt, Amir and Asif being involved in a plot to bowl no-balls for money in a sting operation by the now defunct News of the World.
That decision means Jake Ball’s wait for a Test debut goes on, with Steven Finn again retained alongside senior seamers James Anderson and Broad.
If they are to remain one England will have to shake themselves out of their habitual lethargy when it comes to dead rubbers with them last winning a Test match that could not affect the series result five years ago.
“Even the time I was out of the team I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong”, he said. “I just think we have to protect this great game”.
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Since Amir was cleared to return to the sport in September, he has toured New Zealand for a limited-overs series in January, competed in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh a month later and featured in the World Twenty20 in India. “In private you have a few goals you want to try and achieve, but at the moment a lot of my goals are very immediate with this England team and as a captain that takes me away from personal milestones as a batter”.
