Pakistan batting great Zaheer Abbas says the PCB has been “soft” in dealing with corruption in country’s cricket which, according to him, has been as damaging for the game here as the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team.
The former captain was giving his views on the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) recent move, asking the government to criminalise fixing in sports.
“It is the right thing to do for the Pakistan board because for too long, we have been soft while dealing with corruption cases and these have led to a string of scandals which badly damaged our image and also hurt our cricket’s progress,” Abbas said.
“If the militant attack on the Sri Lankan team bus dealt a big blow to Pakistan cricket as we were forced to play away from home, these corruption scandals have not been less damaging to our cricket over the years,” he reasoned.
Abbas said a legislation to criminalise fixing should have been pushed by the board much earlier as it would have prevented recent cases of spot-fixing.
“In the end it is Pakistan cricket which suffered as we lost good players and more importantly we sent out the wrong message to cricketers and even those who try to lure, entice and corrupt players,” he said.
