AUSTRALIA TO FACE AMIR IN DAY-NIGHT TEST
Mohammed Amir, Pakistan’s paceman will continue his quest for redemption in the upcoming Test series as he is set to play against the Australian Cricket team in the day-night test.
Several words have been made use of, in a bid to describe Amir, such as ‘ex-fixer’, and a host of others but the catchcry the Australian team will be sticking with is ‘another player.”
At the age of 18 and at the request of Captain Salman Butt, Amir deliberately bowled a series of no balls in a test. This thus put him in the spotlight amongst two other Pakistan cricketers in 2010 that were embroiled in a spot-fixing scandal.
As a result of this, Amir was sent to prison to spend three months and was banned from the cricket game for no less than five years.
With the day-night test starting on Thursday in Gabba, Amir’s comeback has been divisive and far from being seamless. A training camp last year was boycotted by team mates, Mohammed Hafeez and Azhar Ali due to the presence of Amir. Early this year had seen the swing specialist being taunted by the New Zealand crowds.
However, some past players such as Mitchell Johnson believes that what the left-armer deserves is sympathy because at the time, he was just a teenager coerced into action by his captain.
And after the scandal, other players such as Ian Healy and Andrew Flintoff, former England skipper wanted harsher sentences for match fixers.
Fellow left-armer, Mitchell Starc was not willing to shed any light on which side of the fence he sits,
“He’s playing Test cricket. He’s another player in their team and we’ll address him in the team meeting. That’s all that needs to be said I think,” Starc said in Brisbane.
