Int'l Cricket Council: Mohammad Amir Reprieve Will Encourage Others To Come Clean

Int'l Cricket Council CEO David Richardson said that the reprieve given to Pakistan bowler Mohammad Amir in a spot-fixing scandal "will encourage corrupt players to come clean and help maintain the game's integrity," according to Sudipto Ganguly of REUTERS. Amir and his former teammates Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif "were all banned for spot-fixing." The trio served jail sentences in Britain and "were given minimum five-year bans by an ICC tribunal." Amir's five-year ban was scheduled to expire on Sept. 2 but the ICC's anti-corruption unit (ACSU) Chair Ronnie Flanagan "exercised his discretion to allow him to return to domestic cricket with immediate effect on Thursday." Richardson said, "There's an incentive to players that if you have messed up there's a way back. Don't forget that Amir would have been out of international cricket for five years. That's more than half a career" (REUTERS, 2/3).