Sport

LONDON (AP):

The three Pakistan cricketers facing allegations of match fixing insisted they were innocent yesterday, but withdrew from the rest of their team's tour of England because of the "mental torture".

Pakistan High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan said he believed the players' protestations of innocence after meeting with them for three hours in London, adding that the decision to leave them out of the team's remaining matches was down to them.

Hasan suggested that the bowlers, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, and Test captain Salman Butt had been set up by the British newspaper accusing them of involvement in a betting scam.

"They are innocent until proven guilty," Hasan told reporters outside the Pakistan High Commission. "They are having to defend themselves. They are upright young men. I think we will go to a court of law to defend them.

"They are Pakistan nationals and it is the honour and the duty of the high commission to give them support."

Video evidence questionable

Hasan later went further in an interview with the BBC, suggesting that the video in which an associate of the players appeared to correctly predict when Asif and Amir would bowl no-balls in the fourth Test against England had been recorded after the action had taken place.

"The video wasn't timed or dated," Hasan said. "It could have been filmed before or after the match or at a different time."

Officials at the high commission handed out copies of a newspaper article by a journalist critical of the methods employed by the reporter involved in the sting operation that led to the allegations.

The omission of the three players should allow Pakistan to play its two Twenty20 and five one-day international matches against England without objection from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), or International Cricket Council (ICC).

Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed said the players had been omitted from the squad for the rest of the tour but not suspended.

"The three players have said they are extremely disturbed with what has happened in the past week," Hasan said in a statement on behalf of the players. "They mention that they are entirely innocent in the whole episode and shall defend their innocence as such.

"They further maintain that on account of the mental torture which has deeply affected them all they are not in the right frame of mind to play the remaining matches."

No pressure

Hasan insisted there had been no pressure from authorities to drop them, but the apparent compromise between the ECB, Pakistan Cricket Board and ICC does save face all around while police and cricket authorities continue investigations into the allegations.

With no charges filed in the case, any official sanctions against the players would be considered premature. But ECB officials did not want the one-day matches to go ahead against a Pakistan team that included the implicated players.

"They want to clear their names first," Hasan said. "We wait for the result of the investigations. I am not in the habit of insinuating or involving anyone."

The ECB welcomed the decision by Pakistan not to include Asif, Amir and Butt in its limited-overs squads.

"We can assure cricket fans across the country that the matches will be played in the most competitive spirit long associated with contests between England and Pakistan," ECB chairman Giles Clarke said.

Hasan said Saeed was holding the players' passports.

Butt, Asif and Amir had to be given a police escort as they entered the high commission in Knights-bridge. About 10 police officers guided the trio into the building amid a throng of reporters and TV crews.

About three hours later, Hasan distracted the waiting media while the three players dodged the cameras by departing through the back entrance of an adjacent building.

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.