Willis, Vaughan want 'Pak spot fixing guilty' to be out of game for good

London, Nov 4: Former England captains Bob Willis and Michael Vaughan have said that the three Pakistani players who were handed jail sentences for their role in last year’s spot fixing scandal should never be welcomed back into the game.

Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, and fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, were jailed by London''s Southwark Crown Court yesterday for their involvement in a spot-fixing scam during the 2010 Lord''s Test against England.

Butt has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail, Asif for a year, while Amir will be jailed for six months.

 “You have to set a precedent. This is a shockwave because three guys are going behind bars, but the ICC a few months ago could have banned these players for life. Mohammad Amir will be back playing in three to four years, back playing by the age of 23 or 24 and his signature will be sought after because he’ll still be up there with the best bowlers in the world,” The Mirror quoted Vaughan, as saying.

“The ICC do a decent job, but they could do a lot more,” he said.

Like Vaughan, Willis also has more or less similar opinion over the issue.

“It does send a very clear message around the cricketing world that this behaviour, if discovered, is not going to be tolerated. I think they should be banned from any representative cricket whatsoever, all of them. There were extenuating circumstance for Amir, but as the evidence unfolded he knew what he was doing,” Willis said.

“It should be a lifetime ban on all three of them. This will certainly help eradicate spot-fixing and match-fixing in the UK. As for the rest of the world, I’m not so sure,” he added.

The spot-fixing controversy centres on allegations that Butt, Asif and Amir took bribes from Mazhar Majeed to deliberately under-perform at certain times in the match.

Undercover reporters from News of the World, led by Mazher Mahmood, had secretly video-taped Majeed accepting money and informing the reporters that Asif and Amir would deliberately bowl no-balls at specific points in an over.

This information could have been used by gamblers to place bets.