Imran Khan blasts Ijaz Butt's Pakistan leadership

10 April 2012

Legendary all-rounder Imran Khan has lashed out at Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt, claiming his leadership during the spot-fixing controversy was "a failure".

Khan, who led Pakistan to World Cup glory in 1992, criticised the PCB and Butt for their lack of initiative in handling the spot-fixing saga, which resulted in the suspensions of Test skipper Salman Butt, and pacemen Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif for allegedly bowling no-balls to order during the fourth Test against England, a claim which the trio have denied.

The current PCB head got himself into further hot water when he claimed that England's players had accepted "enormous sums of money" to lose the third one-day international held at the Brit Oval - the claims were strongly denied by the England team and Butt later apologised.

"Ijaz Butt's governance has been a failure," Khan told Pakistan's Geo News channel. "He should have resigned the moment he apologised to the England board and withdrew his statement because they threatened him with legal action.

"When the spot-fixing allegations first came out against our players, the PCB itself should have taken action against the players instead of waiting for the ICC to step in.

"Today we face problems because the cricket board never took action against the players accused. In order to save itself and ensure we didn't lose key players, the administrators were reluctant to carry out and complete investigations against such players."

The International Cricket Council (ICC) this week issued a warning to the PCB over its future conduct, adding that serious action would be taken if their recommendations over anti-corruption measures were not implemented within 30 days.

And Khan admitted the warning was yet another wake up call for his country's cricketing officials.

He added: "The ICC move to warn us and put us on notice is a shameful day for every Pakistani. It is a shame for Pakistan cricket and the reason is we don't have any cricket institution in Pakistan."

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