Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were not allowed to attend the programme. -File Photo
**KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has launched a programme to educate cricketers and officials on how to avoid corruption and be on their best behaviour in the sport. **
“We have held lectures for all the regional teams including coaches who are part of the domestic structure and also for the national under-19 and A team players and support staff,” former Test captain and wicket-keeper Wasim Bari, who heads the programme, said.
The participants are given lectures on the International Cricket Councils (ICC) anti-corruption code and the PCB code of conduct. “We are also telling them how to behave in a dressing room, how to interact with strangers and outsiders. How to avoid getting lured into corrupt practices. We are preparing them for international cricket.” Banned trio of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir were not allowed to take part in the programme. “Since they [trio] have appealed against their bans the matter is technically sub judice,” said Bari. “So we cant involve them in any programme at the moment.”
The trio are serving minimum five-year bans from the ICCs anti-corruption tribunal for their role in a spot-fixing scandal during last years tour to England.
The controversy sparked a major debate in Pakistan on whether the PCB was doing enough to educate the players on anti-corruption and code of conduct measures.
The PCB official said the lectures were delivered in the national Urdu language and players and officials were encouraged to take part in question-and-answer sessions.“We have also distributed a manual based on the ICC anti-corruption code and our own code of conduct in Urdu in all the regions,” he added.
Fantastic move. We have to accept that corruption is unfortunately a part of how things work in the Indian subcontinent. Such established programs are required - more so in Pak now that a lot of Pak cricketers are coming from humble backgrounds with not much education.
Established anti-corruption education for cricketers coupled with STRICT punishments for any guilty parties would go a long way in preventing another Amir.
^ loyalty to your country and ethics is much more important than english speaking. i'll take a honest urdu speaker anyday over a english speaking "polished" fixer..
^ loyalty to your country and ethics is much more important than english speaking. i'll take a honest urdu speaker anyday over a english speaking "polished" fixer..
Now I Know u like Afridi...(chop ki chop ki dil me)
^ loyalty to your country and ethics is much more important than english speaking. i'll take a honest urdu speaker anyday over a english speaking "polished" fixer..
^ loyalty to your country and ethics is much more important than english speaking. i'll take a honest urdu speaker anyday over a english speaking "polished" fixer..
Learning English does not make you disloyal to your country. I dont care where you come from, learning a language that will help you communicate with the world is always a good thing, and because our players no longer come from the major cities and schools, the PCB should ensure they learn basic english - the whole world will not speak Urdu or Hindi for our players.
^ why is this a priority over fixing corruption though? the bigger project the PCB should have is cleaning out corruption, educating new players and everyone in the grassroots level that any level of corruption will NOT be tolerated..
the english teaching can wait..
and i applaud the pakistani players who come to the stage and talk in urdu..MUCH better than them struggling in english and embarassing themselves after a great performance on the field..
sure.. it would be nice if they spoke the global language and proper education should fix that.. but IMO that should be way down the list of PCB's priorities right now.