Following criticism from the media, fans, and cricket experts, Pakistani cricket authorities removed spot-fixing convicted former captain Salman Butt from a consulting role one day after he was appointed.
On Friday, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced that Butt, along with former players Kamran Akmal and Rao Iftikhar Anjum, had been appointed as consultants for the men’s national team. However, chief selector Wahab Riaz abruptly called a press conference the following day to rescind the appointment.
“As chief selector, it is up to me whom I want to hire to help me so I hired him [Butt] as he has knowledge of domestic cricket and possesses a good cricketing mind, but there has been a great deal of debate since the decision was announced,” Riaz told reporters at PCB’s headquarters in Lahore on Saturday evening.
“I have told Salman he can not be a part of my team,” he added. The PCB declined Al Jazeera’s request for a comment on Butt’s appointment following his role in the sport’s arguably biggest corruption scandal.
In September 2010, a British tabloid’s undercover recording revealed sports agent Mazhar Majeed bragging about how he could set up players to rig games for money. Butt was at the centre of this scandal, and Pakistan captain Asif and his then-teammates Mohammad Amir and Butt were found guilty of corruption as well, bowling purposeful no-balls during a Test match against England at Lord’s in 2010. The scandal sent shockwaves through the cricket world.
Asif and Amir completed half of their one-year and six-month sentences at Canterbury prison in southeast England, while Butt served seven months of a two-and-a-half-year sentence there.
The opening batsman, who participated in 33 Tests, 78 One-Day Internationals, and 24 Twenty20s, additionally served a five-year suspension from the game.
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