Raja believes Pakistan’s players “felt cheated” by Amir’s initial worldwide return, but now expects the fast bowler to be fully integrated for the four-Test series against England.
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“They have broken the rules, should pay the price and not be given a second chance”. “Mohammad Amir, Rahat Ali, Sohail Khan, Yasir Shah – they can all win you a game”, he said. To try to gain an advantage by taking drugs or devaluing your sport by being bribed is breaking the 11th and 12th commandments. “There can be no way back”, he wrote.
Fellow left-arm quick Amir’s career came to a dramatic halt during a Test against England at Lord’s in 2010, when he and new-ball partner Mohammad Asif were caught bowling no-balls to order on the instructions of captain Salman Butt as part of a tabloid newspaper sting operation.
“I understand that in the sub-continent cricketers come from villages where there is poverty and deprivation. But to bowl a no ball to earn more money is just greed”.
Being in his teens at the time, Amir was always given the benefit of the doubt that elder members of the Pakistan team prayed on his youthfullness to involve him in the bowling of deliberate no-balls.
Amir had picked up 6/84 in the fourth Test at Lord’s in 2010 but later admitted to spot-fixing.
“You can not stop what people say and what people think”, Riaz said at Lord’s in a spiky and bullish press conference on Tuesday ahead of the first Investec Test. “It doesn’t matter what people think and we are not here to answer what people think”.
On that fateful weekend six years ago, as England wrapped up an innings victory, the Lord’s crowd made its feelings clear on a near silent Sunday morning that the spot-fixing revelations were anything but welcome – and ditto, man-of-the-series Amir who was already implicated.
One grey area Pakistan have in their Test team, is the lack of an all-rounder. I see this as the start of a campaign to start pressuring Amir. Batsmen are at the other end in the nets, so you feel like you have to get to know the bowlers to help the captain out.
“I feel pretty comfortable going into the series and it’s now just about trying to make sure that moving forward that’s something I feel comfortable with and I can keep making big scores and contributing to winning Test matches”. Ballance was a surprise call-up for England’s squad for the first Test against Pakistan at Lord’s after striking a defiant century – his first of the season – in Yorkshire’s defeat against the new Championship leaders Middlesex at Scarborough.
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At Edgbaston, they watched on as Jason Roy and Alex Hales dismantled their bowling attack to the tune of an unbeaten first-wicket partnership of 256 in a ten-wicket humbling inside 35 overs.
