KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is considering legal action against England batsman Jonathan Trott after his clash with Pakistani bowler Wahab Riaz before the fourth One-day International at Lord’s, a board source said Friday.
PCB chairman Ijaz Butt had conferred with his legal team over the possibility of filing legal action against Trott for allegedly calling Riaz “a match fixer” while the two teams were warming up in the nets, the source said.
The two players scuffled and had to appear before the match referee over the incident, with Trott apologising to Riaz.
“There is a strong likelihood that the PCB, in a tit-for-tat response to the threat by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to sue Butt over his remarks against English players, will go after Trott,” the source said.
Thursday, the ECB demanded a “full and unreserved apology” from Butt for his allegations that England players had engaged in match-fixing.
Butt told a Pakistan television channel, after England lost the third One-day International at the Oval last Friday, that there had been “loud and clear talk in bookies’ circles that some English players were paid enormous amounts of money to lose the match.”
His comments came after the International Cricket Council (ICC) launched an inquiry into Pakistan’s scoring pattern at the Oval after receiving information from a British newspaper.
Pakistan Test captain Salman Butt and his team mates Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif were suspended earlier in the tour after an investigation into a newspaper report that they had arranged for no-balls to be deliberately bowled during the fourth Test at Lord’s.
The embattled Pakistan team returned home from their tour earlier Friday, to a quiet reception.
Copyright Thenews 25.9.2010
Pakistan return home after disastrous tour
KARACHI: Pakistan’s one-day captain Shahid Afridi Friday called Pakistan’s scandal-marred tour of England the “most difficult” of his career as the team staged a low-key return home after four gruelling months away.
Coach Waqar Younis also conceded that it had been a punishing tour “on and off the field” after corruption investigations engulfed the side, triggering a barrage of condemnation from the press and public.
An exhausted-looking Afridi flew in to Karachi with three team-mates while the rest of the squad arrived in Lahore in the early hours, with a phalanx of gun-toting policemen escorting the players out of both airports.
“It was tough because of the controversies and became very difficult to cope with, because every time we went out of the hotel people passed remarks against us,” Afridi told reporters here.
“Because of the controversies on the tour, it was the most difficult tour of my 14-year career,” the explosive all-rounder added.
The tour ended on Wednesday with Pakistan losing the one-day series 3-2. England also took the Test and T20 series.
The tour will be remembered less for the on-field play and more for the off-field revelations by British tabloids that sparked investigations by Scotland Yard and the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Afridi said team unity had remained intact despite the storm of controversy.
“The best part of the whole tour was that the players showed unity even in difficult times and gave a good fight in the one-day series against England,” he said, while also hinting at a return to Test cricket.
Foreign teams have shunned tours of Pakistan since the Sri Lanka team was attacked by gunmen near Lahore’s Gaddafi stadium in March 2009. Seven Sri Lankan players and a coach were wounded in the attack, which killed eight Pakistanis.
Pakistan began their troubled summer tour with matches against Australia in England, winning both T20 matches and squaring the two-Test series 1-1. Waqar, one of Pakistan’s greatest bowlers, said the tour’s length had taken its toll.
“If you take into account the tour to Sri Lanka before we went to England, it was four months on the trot and the tour of England was difficult both on and off the field,” the coach said on his arrival in Lahore.
“We had successes against Australia which were pleasing. But because of the controversies it was tough against England, because you need to go to extra effort to gee up the players when you see a report in the newspaper every other day,” he added. “There is a need to educate the younger players so that the future generation should not be embroiled in match-fixing controversies and I would request the PCB to enhance that education.”
Copyright Thenews 25.9.2010
Bad business
Federal Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh has shared with the National Assembly the alarming news that our banks have written off Rs50 billion of bad debts over the last two years. Putting this into perspective, the banks have done the equivalent of assembling a pile of money worth Rs50 billion, and then systematically torn it up. In ironic juxtaposition to this news, and speaking in the same question hour on Thursday, Hina Rabbani Khar, Minister of State for the Economic Affairs Division, told the House that we were currently paying $3.6 billion in interest payments to our three principal international lenders every year. Our total borrowing from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund has now reached $31billion.
These two statements are illustrative of the rot at the heart of our own banking sector. On the one hand, we beg for money internationally, while on the other we are so unable to adequately manage our own internal business affairs that we casually tear up money. Our banks need to be a lot tighter in their lending procedures, and a lot more circumspect as to the risks they expose themselves to. Doubtless, there must have been political pressure behind the making and subsequent default of many of these loans, but that is no excuse. Bad business is bad for all of us, and our banks are irresponsible, poorly managed and politically manipulated. This bad business must end for the sake of all of us.
Copyright Thenews 25.9.2010
A solution at last
The hammering out of a solution between the HEC and the Planning Commission, which will lead to teachers at 72 public-sector universities going back to the lecture halls, is welcome. The formula devised is simple enough and involves the grant of sufficient funds to universities to allow them to pay staff. No new scholarships will be offered this year, but students studying abroad will receive their stipends and projects nearing completion will be funded. It is strange that it took strike action from academic staff for the agreement to be reached. Surely it would have been possible to reach the agreement without this becoming necessary. The unpleasantness at the meeting between the vice chancellors and Federal Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh could also, quite easily, have been avoided. It's strange why bad blood was created when a solution seems to have been possible all along. There is little sense in all this.
But we should be glad that a longer strike, one disrupting education for thousands of students, has been avoided. However, in the course of the row, the attitude of the government has been revealed. Its approach to higher education is not encouraging. This is especially true as funding is not the only issue faced by this sector. There are many more, related to the need to push up standards and to do away with vices such as plagiarism. More money is required to tackle these issues. The grant made now consists of little more than a subsistence sum. For the future we need more thinking and a better strategy. Our public-sector universities desperately need support to overcome the problems they face and to move on with the task of bringing quality education to students who represent the future of our country.
Copyright Thenews 25.9.2010
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