Are Butt, Aamer, and Asif really worth it?
Five years have passed since Pakistan cricket
was rocked by the worst scandal ever in its history -then Test captain
Salman Butt and Pakistan's two premier fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad
Aamer were accused of spot fixing.
It seems like yesterday when they were
handed 5-year bans from the game and jail terms for their role in spot fixing
during the summer of 2010. There is some irony in the fact that they are once
again eligible to play international cricket when Pakistan is gearing up for a series against England, the same opposition
they played against last.
Noise has already been made by all three
players about resurrecting their international careers.
Aamer's return is most
likely considering that his return-path was paved for him 6 months ago when the
ICC allowed him to return to domestic cricket, enabling him to play some
competitive cricket before making a fully fledged international return. For
Butt and Asif, it will be harder. They haven't played any competitive cricket
for 5 years and both players are not as young as Aamer, who at 23 has a full
career ahead of him.
I would place my money on them returning. Would be interesting to see what the odds are on betting sites regarding the return of these three cricketers.
Whether they will return to the Pakistan team
or not is all together another question. Should they return is the more
pertinent question really.
It seems a little unfair that Butt, Aamer,
and Asif are now allowed to play international cricket again after disgracing
their country and the sport on the international stage, while a player like Danish
Kaneria is banned for life for coercing a domestic cricketer to accept money
for fixing in a domestic game. What this means is that wrong doing in
international cricket can be forgiven, while the same in domestic cricket
cannot be? That is a bit perplexing for me.
And what about all the players who have
represented Pakistan during the past 5 years with integrity and success? Is it
fair for Aamer and Asif to come back into the team at the expense of Junaid
Khan, Mohammad Irfan, Wahab Riaz, Imran Khan, or Rahat Ali? Is it fair for
Salman Butt to make a return at the expense of Ahmed Shehzad, Shan Masood,
Azhar Ali, Mohammad Hafeez, Mukhtar Ahmed, Nauman Anwar, Sami Aslam, or Babar
Azam? Definitely not.
These are arguments based on moral grounds.
Here's a look at how these three faired in
the three formats before their bans, and whether their return is warranted on a
statistical basis or not.
The records that stand out are Salman Butt
and Mohammad Aamer in ODIs, and Mohammad Asif in Tests. In T20Is, all three had
below par figures. While in tests Butt and Aamer were just about average, and
likewise for Asif in ODIs.
I can probably shed more light on these three
after comparing their figures with those of the players who replaced them in
the past 5 years.
In test matches, Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad
Hafeez, and Taufeeq Umar have all performed far better than Salman Butt ever
did in his career. Even Shan Masood, who is just finding his feet in test
cricket, seems like a better test opener than Salman Butt.
Azhar Ali and Sarfraz Ahmed have been a
revelation at the top for Pakistan, and have performed better than most
openers. Even Shehzad has a solid record that is comparable to Salman Butt's.
Salman Butt was never an opener in the T20
mould and Pakistan have far better batsmen to do that job. Shehzad and Mukhtar
have both performed better than Butt did, while all the batsmen in the table
above, barring Nasir Jamshed, have a better T20 strike rate than Butt's.
It is quite clear from all this that Salman
Butt has no place in Pakistan's international team for any format.
On the bowling front, however, the story is a
bit different.
In tests, there has been no fast bowler for
Pakistan who has performed as well as Asif. Not even one who has done so as
well as Aamer either, besides Tanvir Ahmed who appeared for a short time and
then fell out of favor for reasons best known to selectors. In fact, besides
Tanvir, only Imran Khan averages under 30 among the pacers that have played for
Pakistan in the past 5 years since Aamer and Asif got banned.
While there have been several bowlers for
Pakistan who have done far better than Asif in ODIs; such as Sohail Khan, Rahat
Ali, Aizaz Cheema, Mohammad Irfan, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, and Junaid Khan; there
has been not a single one who has performed at the level of Mohammad Aamer.
Pakistan's pace bowling has definitely not
been the same during the absence of Aamer and Asif, who together created
arguably the best attacking pair Pakistan has had since Wasim and Waqar. It is
unfortunate that they played together for less than a year and that their best
years were taken away from them due to their own grave mistakes.
Once can only sit and wonder what could have
been had these two not succumbed to greed and had continued to share the new
ball for Pakistan over the past 5 years.
While statistically there is no argument
about whether Aamer and Asif should return to Pakistan's colors; however on
moral ground there is still plenty of debate.
On Salman Butt however, there should be no
debate. Pakistan has far better resources at the moment to go back to a dead
weight like Butt.
Butt might have served his 5-year ban from
cricket and his jail term, but the damage he has done to Pakistan cricket
deserves more punishment in my opinion. He was the captain of the team when all
this drama ensued. That only means that he needs to accept more responsibility
than both Aamer and Asif who were in a way coerced by Butt to bowl those no
balls. Butt was in control of the bowers on the field. He was the sole decision
maker regarding who to throw the ball to. He was the one who ensured that Aamer and Asif
bowled those particular overs and the no balls on those specific deliveries.
The control was all in Butt's hands. He was critical to the whole spotfix.
Without him, it would not have been possible.
Just this fact that it was Butt who enable
the whole fix should ensure that he never plays for Pakistan again. Ban or no
ban, Salman Butt should never be allowed to don the Pakistan cap.
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