LAHORE: Former Pakistan coach Waqar Younis said on Saturday spot-fixing was still persisting in cricket and we needed to work collectively to uproot it.
“Spot-fixing has badly damaged the image of Pakistan cricket and we could not completely eradicate it as yet,” he said while talking to media at the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)’s Lahore office.
He said he would do special mentoring of young cricketers regarding spot-fixing.
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Spot-fixing involves determining the outcome of a specific part of a match rather than the overall result, and is therefore harder to detect than match-fixing.
In recent times few Pakistani players have become suspected of spot-fixing charges including some finest players. The players include Sharjeel Khan, Khalid Latif, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shahzaib Hasan and Nasir Jamshed.
Sharjeel was charged with purposefully playing two dot balls in his team Islamabad United’s opening match against Peshawar Zalmi in Dubai in the last edition of Pakistan Super League (PSL).
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His fellow opener Khalid Latif was banned for five years and fined one million rupees for engineering the deal with a bookie.
Paceman Mohammad Irfan and spinner Mohammad Nawaz were banned for one year and two months respectively over not reporting fixing offers.
Two other players – Shahzaib Hasan and Nasir Jamshed – are also under investigation by the tribunal.
Waqar Younis also said that he was hopeful of foreign players’ full participation in the PSL. World XI and Sri Lankan team’s matches had injected life to Pakistan cricket as it had removed fears of other countries’ players, he said.
“It is a positive sign for international cricket’s revival in Pakistan,” he added.
