The involvement of Pakistan cricketers in the spot-fixing controversy has blown away their hopes of participating in Indian Premier League-IV. The IPL’s Governing Council (GC), which met on Sunday here, has decided not to include any Pakistan players in next year’s auction.
A BCCI top official said that the GC was of the view that they didn’t want to malign IPL by including tainted players. “At present seven Pakistan players are being probed for match-fixing. And we have no idea how deep-rooted the problem is. The entire team is under ICC anti-corruption radar and that’s why we decided to keep them away from the auction,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were placed under provisional suspension by International Cricket Council (ICC) after British tabloid News of the World broke the spot-fixing scandal during the Lord’s Test against England. More recently, allegations of wrongdoing were made against four more players — Umar Akmal, Wahab Riaz, Kamran Akmal and Imran Farhat.
