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Pakistan players head for questioning

Three Pakistan cricketers implicated in match-fixing allegations are traveling to London on Wednesday for an internal inquiry with Pakistani officials.

Test captain Salman Butt and pace bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir left the team hotel in Taunton at 1012 GMT, not long after their teammates had departed for a training session ahead of a match against English county Somerset on Thursday.

Four Pakistan security members kept the media from approaching the three players in the hotel lobby before they left in a local taxi.

Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed said PCB chairman Ijaz Butt had ordered Thursday’s inquiry at the Pakistan High Commission in Knightsbridge in London. The commissioner will attend the meeting. The players are scheduled to return to the squad on Saturday, Saeed said.

Pakistan one-day captain Shahid Afridi is hoping the match against Somerset will turn the attention back to cricket.

‘We are definitely looking forward to getting back to cricket,’ Afridi said. ‘Myself and the coach (Waqar Younis) are trying to keep morale high. It’s always very difficult in these conditions against a good team, but they are all really focused.

‘What has happened has gone. We are here to play good cricket. It’s a big challenge for me personally — playing in English conditions is always difficult. We are all looking forward to it. It has been really difficult but we can forget everything, get out, play the cricket and entertain the people.’

British newspaper the News of the World alleged Sunday that Amir and Asif were paid to deliberately bowl no-balls in the opening day of the fourth test against England at Lord’s last week. Butt and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal were also implicated in the story.

Asif, Amir and Butt had their mobile phones confiscated by police, who also searched hotel rooms and questioned players on Saturday as part of an investigation also involving the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.

Middleman Mazhar Majeed, who was captured on film saying when the no-balls would be bowled in the newspaper sting, was arrested by Scotland Yard police on Saturday and released on bail the following day.

Pakistan and England will play Twenty20 matches on Sunday and Tuesday before a five-match one-day international series.

Somerset chief executive Richard Gould said the England and Pakistan cricket boards had ensured Thursday’s match would be played, and added that security won’t be an issue if there is any crowd trouble.

‘We’ve incorporated the security plan we had in place last year when we were a venue for the Twenty20 World Cup,’ Gould said. ‘Within the last 12 months we’ve gone through all the ICC scrutiny on security. We would like to try to create a welcoming and most casual atmosphere possible, but we are prepared if we need to act decisively.’