The International Cricket Council (ICC) may ban Pakistan’s suspended Test captain Salman Butt for seven years while while his teammates Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer could escape with two-year bans after next month’s hearing of the anti-corruption tribunal in Doha.
According to reports, Butt is likely to be banned and slapped with a heavy financial penalty.
The ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has prepared a long list of evidences against him based on the fact that he was captain and responsible for the conduct of the team. The fact that Butt was captain would entail the longest ban on him.
As far as Asif and Aamer are concerned, they are likely to escape with shorter bans of around two years each for their role in the spot-fixing allegations.
ICC had been given plenty of evidence and extended video footage of interviews with Pakistani bookmaker Mazhar Majeed by the ‘News of the World’ tabloid, which first broke the story that implicated the three players in the spot-fixing allegations.
The three were provisionally suspended by the ICC in early September after it emerged that Mazhar Majeed had bribed them to deliberately bowl no-balls during the fourth Test against England at Lord’s.