Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt cleared to return to

Pakistan players Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif will be eligible to return to competitive cricket on September 2 after serving bans for corruption. While Amir and Majeed had pleaded guilty before the trial began, Butt and Asif denied the charges.

The British police arrested the bookmaker and the ICC banned the three players for different periods; Amir for five years, Asif for seven years (later two years were suspended on specific conditions) and Salman for 10 years (later five years were suspended on specific conditions).

“I am very relieved but what is my future now I have to decide”.

Butt, who was Pakistan’s captain when the spot fixing scandal occurred in 2010 in England, had since the relaxation given to Aamir approached the PCB several times to fight his case and get him permission to return to domestic cricket.

President Ehsan Mani has called Pakistans u-turn about playing a tri-series against West Indies and Zimbabwe, as simply “not cricket” and going against the spirit of the game.

In addition to these sanctions, all three players were jailed: Butt for 30 months, Asif for one year and Amir for six months.

At 23, the lavishly talented swing bowler is the youngest of the trio by a distance and made the first steps of a comeback for Rawalpindi Rams in a T20 tournament in May.

Left-arm fast bowler Amir received the shortest of the bans – five years – during the independent anti-corruption tribunal in Qatar.

Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan said he will wait for the written ICC decision on the two players before giving his reaction.

That forced the ICC to form its Anti Corruption and Security Unit in 2001 but administrators still admit that it is hard to eradicate the threat of fixing completely, given the millions of dollars that change hands in illegal betting markets, mainly in Asia, during worldwide matches.