I’m proud and honoured to have one of the UK’s greatest young writers join the Dennis Does Cricket stable.
Please get around Nick Sharland’s debut piece and leave a nice comment [Dennis]
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The ICC and the PCB are on the verge of arranging Mohammad Amir’s return to competitive cricket in Pakistan. Amir’s original ban was due to last until September of this year, but under the revised anti-corruption code he may be eligible to play domestic cricket as early as February.
Amir is still only 22, and therefore young enough to hope for an international recall. His natural ability and pace reminded many of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, Pakistan’s fast-bowling stars of yester-year. Amir was only seventeen when he made his debut against Sri Lanka at Galle, taking six wickets on a famously placid pitch. He had not reached his nineteenth birthday when he deliberately delivered no-balls to order, in the same Lord’s Test that saw him become the youngest bowler to take fifty Test wickets.
But should a tainted cricketer like Amir, however talented, expect to be welcomed back into the Pakistan fold? While Pakistan’s Test side has been successful so far this decade, in spite of all the obstacles and set-backs, they lack top-class seamers, and if Amir could fulfil a fraction of the potential he showed as an eighteen year-old, he would have no problem displacing the likes of Mohammad Talha and Rahat Ali on skill.
It is impossible to overestimate Amir’s potential at the time of his suspension. It is heartbreaking to imagine what he might have achieved in the sport if he hadn’t got involved in spot-fixing. But he did, and we are where we are.
Many arguments have been made in favour of Amir’s reintegration into the Pakistan side, and each deserves to be addressed. The first is that Amir was young, impressionable and under the influence of a corrupt captain (Salman Butt) and an agent whom he respected. Undoubtedly those authority figures deserved harsh punishments for their role in Amir’s downfall, which they duly received. At eighteen, however, Amir was old enough to tell the difference between right and wrong. He knew that he should have reported the approach to the team management and/or the ICC, and yet he failed to do so. Young, certainly. Impressionable, probably. But even if others set him off on the wrong path, he chose to walk down it despite knowing about the alternatives.
Another popular argument is that, unlike Butt and Asif, Amir pleaded guilty to the charges laid against him in court. However, Amir’s confession followed weeks of denial, in private and in public. He lied to the press, he lied to the PCB, and he lied to his family. As ESPNcricinfo.com’s George Dobell points out, he “was dragged kicking and screaming into confessing. He denied it all the way through until he had no cards left to play”. The fact that Amir pleaded guilty and Butt and Asif didn’t tells you more about the supreme arrogance of the other two than it does about Amir’s honesty.
A third argument, and the most forceful, is that he has served his sentence, and deserves the same right as any other criminal to rehabilitation. Except, he hasn’t served his full sentence, and the punishment he has received was only undertaken reluctantly. He appealed against a custodial sentence, and has been relentless in trying to loosen the bonds of his ICC ban, with assistance from the PCB. In 2011, he was investigated for breaching the terms of his ban when he turned out for Addington 1743 Cricket Club in the Surrey League.
On the other side of the argument, the impact Amir’s actions have had on the world of cricket, and on Pakistan cricket in particular, make it very difficult to justify him playing for the national side again. Corruption is the greatest threat facing cricket at the moment, as it undermines the credibility of the sport and reduces fans’ trust in the spectacle they see in front of them.
What makes cricket, or any sport for that matter, magical to watch? It’s when the unpredictable happens. Fans need to believe that crazy, wonderful and sometimes downright appalling mistakes can be made on the cricket field, without worrying that they were somehow being faked. When AB de Villiers blitzed the fastest ODI century, fans need to believe that the bowlers were trying their hardest to get him out. If Mohammad Amir was given 30 to defend off the last over of an ODI, fed the batsmen rank full-tosses and lost the game, how many people would be screaming fix? He cannot expect fans to take him seriously as a sportsman ever again.
Another reason his return should be discouraged is the fragile reputation of the Pakistan cricket team. Days after the revelations about the spot-fixing at Lord’s, England batsman Jonathan Trott was involved in an altercation with Pakistan’s Wahab Riaz. Trott asked Riaz, ‘How much are you going to make from the bookies today?’ While Trott was wrong to level such an accusation verbally, the spot-fixing scandal cast doubts over the integrity of the whole team, not just the few players who were arrested. As Mohammad Amir himself stated in an interview with Michael Atherton, Pakistan’s reputation as a country was being dragged through the dirt because of their actions.
Since 2010, Misbah-ul-Haq has rebuilt the reputation of the Pakistan team with immense difficulty. Even though they can’t play international fixtures at home, were deprived of their best seamers and captain, he has taken them as high as third in the overall Test rankings. It is a remarkable achievement made only more surprising by the intense media scrutiny of Pakistan’s cricketers. Misbah is one of the most well-respected figures in world cricket, and deserves immense credit for all of his hard work.
To bring back Amir into such an environment would be an incredibly dangerous move by the PCB. While he may have attended all the relevant anti-corruption seminars the ICC have sent him to, he will have to share a dressing room with the men who have spent five years repairing the damage he has done to their reputations. That will not be easy for them or Amir.
George Dobell said that Pakistan deserve better than to have Mohammad Amir play for them again, and he is right. As a team and as a nation, Pakistan are better than Mohammad Amir.
However talented he may have been, however talented he still is, in the long term teams are judged as much by their integrity and honour as by their results. And it is for that reason that Mohammad Amir should not play international cricket again.
Great debut mate. Looking forward to more!
Excellent article Nick, I agree with your argument, cricket doesn’t need distractions like MA and Pakistan need him like a hole in the head.
Shoot one, teach a thousand
Nice piece, and the last argument – about sharing the dressing room with those who undid the damage he caused – is a very powerful one. However, “the punishment he has received was only undertaken reluctantly”, is not relevant.
Whether he takes his punishment gleefully or reluctantly, the provision for a punishment for the crime existed before him. There were rules stating what was wrong and the consequences of those rules. All of these have been carried out, and at best the ‘loosening’ will be him playing domestic cricket a few months before his five year ban ends. With the punishment over, raising questions over his re-entry suggests that there is a discontent with the laws. Perhaps people would like to see life bans, as several have argued recently.
But to use Amir’s alleged intentions as a way of arguing that even though he has served the time he should never be forgiven the crime is disingenuous. I don’t really care about any of the arguments at this point beyond the fact that the law has been carried out. I don’t wish to speculate about why people have suddenly realised that Amir is returning, and why the argument is being made about his person and not the law. If Amir was breaking the law again, or being allowed to avoid it, then this argument made sense.
Finally, I find the “Pakistan deserves better than Amir” argument to be rather insulting. What Pakistan deserves better is not to be shafted by the Big 3, what it deserves is teams undertaking regular tours to its adopted home, what it deserves is more matches rather than hastily arranged tours with Sri Lanka, what it deserves is having its players picked in the mega-lucrative T20 leagues. Pakistan cricket deserves its state to provide security to its people so that it can be played at home. Pakistan cricket deserves to be rid of the ad hoc nepotistic structure running the game.
I don’t understand why Amir’s lawful and expected return is a bigger slight than any of the problems stated above.
In conclusion, there is a clear discontent within the game about fixers returning to the fold. People are welcome to focus on that and lobby for its change. However, I don’t think we should imply that Amir’s possible return is Pakistan cricket’s biggest problem, because that completely reduces this team once again to a fixer/non-fixer dichotomy, which is hugely unfair.
Fair points Ahmer and welcome to the comments section of Dennis Does Cricket. May we see much more of you here!
I agree that the issue is with the rules that allow him to return. The fact the rules allowed a sentence less than a life ban has now raised the issues that Nick points out in his article.
Personally, cricket can live without Amir.
I think if we are to take a moral stand with Amir, then we should do the same with Wasim. I don’t see it that way for either, but if we genuinely believe that fixing undermines the very premise of sport then Wasim’s sins have also been proven in a legal setting. (The Qayyum Commission)
I would highly recommend the final section of Osman Samiuddin’s The Unquiet Ones, which discusses both of them in the context of fixing.
To return to the point, I think this is a debate about the law of fixing, and not Amir or Pakistan cricket.
Thank you for reading my article, and for your thoughts. I completely take your point on the punishment. The law as it existed has been carried out, and changes in the law are being applied as they come into force, which is perfectly fair.
I made the argument about Amir because I felt there were some misleading arguments circulating about him. For example, the idea that he owned up to his wrong-doing straight away just isn’t true: he pleaded guilty because there was no other realistic option, and Butt and Asif were just supremely arrogant (or badly advised) to plead not guilty.
I am sorry if you were offended by my final argument, needless to say that was far from my intention. I share your anger at the other injustices entirely, and Amir’s return is in no way a greater threat to Pakistani cricket, or cricket in general, than any of those. Pakistan deserve better than all of those things.
I think what disappoints me is that there seems (and I may be wrong) to be a rush to get Amir back into the side. I fear that it might endanger the reputation of a team that has done so much on and off the field to restore credibility. In a wider sense, I’m worried that Amir would never be able to bowl a no-ball again without it being questioned. Cricket has innumerable problems right now, and while Amir’s return isn’t high on the list, fixing is. It’s not an argument why he shouldn’t be allowed back, it’s just a concern.
I would really like to know how the current team feels about the possibility of Amir returning. I’ve only seen evasive responses from Misbah, but in my opinion the team should be consulted before Amir is brought back into international cricket. Usually, the players should just accept the selectors’ decisions, but in this case the selection of Amir may well make players uncomfortable or angry, and those feelings should be respected.
I wouldn’t like to see mandatory life bans for fixing. I would like to see mandatory life bans for anyone convicted of corrupting others and encouraging others to fix, as Salman Butt did. Personally, I feel there is no place for anyone who has done that in professional sport.
Amir’s return is far from being Pakistan cricket’s biggest problem, but I worry that it might become a distraction and an annoyance that the current players do not deserve. I don’t want to see him back in international cricket at all, but if he does come back it could only be with the agreement
Thanks for replying. In hindsight, I was a bit careless in using the word insulting in my comment, as I didn’t want to imply that I was offended by the piece itself.
Your point about the current team is the most valid one. So far, it appears that while Misbah and YK would be fine with him, the post-2010 crop of Azhar, Asad, Sarfaraz etc are far less enthused, and reintegrating him in the side seems to be already a thorny issue. This is based on rumours within the journos, but makes sense.
Moreover, once he actually returns the media will be looking to make it into a huge issue, particularly in Pakistan, and this would be a major distraction as well.
I agree, great article and look forward to reading more from him. Although Amir has served his time, I still think he should not be allowed to play International Cricket. He has lost the trust of not only his teammates but the spectators and, frankly, I agree with Denis, Cricket can do without him.
DennisCricket_ just will leave this here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_bookmaker_controversy