Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul Haq has backed tainted compatriots Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt, saying they should be given a second chance after serving stints in jail for spot fixing. The pair, along with former teammate Mohammad Amir, were jailed in Britain after being found guilty of spot fixing at the 2010 Lord’s Test against England.
Although Amir has returned to the national team in impressive style, Asif and Butt remain sidelined and have not been included in Pakistan’s squad for the T20 World Cup starting this month in India.
“Once a person completes his sentence, he has the right to live and play and the right to do everything else,” Inzamam told AFP in an interview in New Delhi. “So I believe the other players should also get a chance to make a return,” said Inzamam, who played with the pair in the later stages of his career.
The swashbuckling batsman, who took over as coach of Afghanistan last year, was briefly in Delhi as part of his minnow’s preparations for the World Cup.
Inzamam, who played 120 Tests and 388 one-day internationals during his illustrious career, praised Amir for his sensational spell of bowling against India in the ongoing T20 Asia Cup in Dhaka. “The sheer fact that a person can have so much talent, that even after a long hiatus he can bowl with the same vigour and precision” is amazing, he said.
“The way he bowled against India it didn’t look as if he was making a comeback after five long years. It was a treat to watch.”
The 23-year-old took three quick wickets for Pakistan in last week’s match before India eventually pummelled their bitter rivals by five wickets. Amir’s five-year ban from the sport was lifted last April by the International Cricket Council, while Asif and Butt became eligible last September for national and international matches.
But the Pakistan Cricket Board has said the pair will have to work harder to impress before returning to international cricket.
They returned to domestic cricket in style in January, with Butt smashing a century and left-armer Asif picking up two wickets in their first outing in the one-day league.
All three were found guilty by a British court of arranging deliberate no-balls in return for money in a complex betting scam. They were jailed in 2011 and were released at different times the following year.  
Amir returned to the national side for the limited-overs tour of New Zealand in January and got down to business right away with his wicket-taking ability intact.
Inzamam said he believes Pakistan still stands a chance in the World T20 starting March 8 despite disappointing batting in the Asia Cup. “T20 is an unpredictable format, so you cannot rule out any team’s chances,” said Inzamam, who has 8,830 Test runs to his credit.

Yorkshire tell Geoff Boycott they don’t want him on the board
Geoff Boycott’s hopes of joining the board at Yorkshire have found little favour with the club chairman, Steve Denison.
Boycott, a former Yorkshire captain and more recently president, has reportedly accrued sufficient nominations to be put forward as a prospective board member at the club’s annual general meeting over Easter.
Denison has made it clear in a BBC interview he does not believe the former England opener’s presence at committee level will be in Yorkshire’s best interests.
Speaking on the day the club announced an annual profit for the first time in seven years, Denison cited the need for “stability”.
Yorkshire, county champions for the past two seasons, are planning a multimillion pound redevelopment of the Football Ground stand to try to guarantee Test match status beyond the agreement with the England and Wales Cricket Board, in place until 2019. Denison told BBC Radio Leeds: “We want individuals with skills that can guarantee the survival of the club.”
Members will be urged to look beyond Boycott when it is recommended at the end of this month that three new board members are elected.“We are saying no on the back of stability,” the chairman said. “The success we have had in the last two seasons has been on the back of a very stable board and a very stable management team, all pointing in the same direction.”
Yorkshire retain significant existing debts, despite the annual profit of £368,000 and an increased income of £8.4m, and Test-match status is crucial to their well-being.
Denison has fond memories of Boycott in his playing days, when he became a hero for many, but will not allow that to affect his judgment. “He’s a boyhood hero of mine – I invaded the pitch aged 13 when he got his 100th hundred at Headingley.
“But the problem we face at the moment is the club has been in serious financial difficulty for a long time, propped up by [the former chairman] Colin Graves. We need specialist skills on our board in relation to finance and construction, and that’s the direction of the board over the next few years.”