Pakistani Cric ket Players: Salman Butt

Salman Butt Biography

Source (google.com.pk)
Born 7 October 1984
Born in Lahore to a middle-class family and educated in an English-speaking school, Butt had to take care of his two sisters' education and household expenses following the separation of his parents when he was 14. He did not pick up a bat until he was 12 yet by the time he had turned 16 Butt was already playing first-class cricket. He was still only 18 when he made his Test debut and had played 28 Tests as a steady left-handed batsman when he took over the captaincy from Shahid Afridi in 2010. His Test average of 30.46 was much exceeded by the 36.82 he recorded in 50-over cricket and he opened the batting during Pakistan's triumph in the World Twenty20 tournament held in England in 2009.
His involvement in the sport had legitimately earned him an estimated $1.2m (£750,000) from his contracts and prize money with the Pakistan Cricket Board and the Indian Premier League's Kolkata Knight Riders, as well as sponsorships with companies including Adidas. But, having been involved in a plot to rig the outcome of events at Lord's during Pakistan's fourth Test against England, that glittering career was brought to a halt.
Cricket's world governing body, the International Cricket Council, banned him for 10 years, with five of them suspended, in February this year.
Mohammad Asif
Born 20 December 1982
At the time Pakistan toured England last year, the tall, rangy right-armed bowler from Punjab had become a Test specialist after being dropped from Pakistan's limited-overs teams. But he was a formidable force, noted not for his pace but for his accuracy and seam movement. With a bowling average of 24.36, Asif had risen to be ranked by the ICC the second-best bowler in the world. He was, though, a natural No11 and far less proficient with the bat. As many as 14 of Asif's 38 innings ended with him losing his wicket without scoring a single run.
At 28 years old he should be hitting his prime but Asif's career appears to have come to a premature and abrupt end after the seven-year ICC ban, with two years suspended, he received in February for his part in the spot-fixing plot. Asif said he and Majeed had clashed over his decision to strike up his own bat sponsorship with Solisports, a company with which Majeed was not connected.
But telephone records showed several instances of calls, voicemails and texts between Asif and the agent. Though none of the content of those calls or texts was recovered, the fact alone that Asif bowled a no-ball on the sixth ball of the 10th over at Lord's, as predicted by Majeed, was enough to convict him.
Mohammad Amir
Born 13 April 1992
Amir made his international debut in the World Twenty20 in 2009 and the 17-year-old opening bowler took a wicket with only his second ball. He played in six of the seven games as Pakistan won the tournament, but this success came less than four months after a terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team on its way to a Test match in Lahore. As a result of the ICC's suspension of Pakistan's hosting rights, he has never played a Test, Twenty20 or one-day international on home soil.
That has never proved a brake on his development, however. With an ability to launch the ball at more than 90mph and move it through the air all the while, he became the youngest bowler to take 50 Test wickets during the 2010 tour of England. He was named Pakistan's man of the series and would doubtless have been named the ICC's emerging player of the year had it not banned him for five years for his part in the spot-fix.
The rigged no-balls had been delivered at Lord's and, when faced with criminal charges in this country, Amir pleaded guilty on 16 September this year. The court heard how, unlike for Asif or Butt, there was direct evidence that Amir had arranged the fixing of events directly with Majeed, who visited his hotel room shortly after taking possession of the News of the World's £150,000. But Asif, like his two team-mates born in Punjab, is at 19 still young enough to rehabilitate himself and resume his cricket career.

Salman Butt