It is time for Pakistan cricketers to pay their dues

In a world that is right and carries hope, November 1, 2011 should come to be the day Pakistan cricket drew a line under a decade so darkened, it is surprising there is still any light left.
Everything else that has happened in these past 10 years or so could have been taken as separate discordant note; ball tampering, Bob Woolmer's death, the terror attacks, the doping scandals (the administrative decline and player factionalism can be said to be permanent features of Pakistan's game).
But the soundtrack to these notes, the background music (and in many heads, it must have sounded like the ominous build-up that underscores Jaws) through the decade, has been the paranoid, frazzled symphony of corruption.
It began with the crash and bang of inquiries and commissions around the start of the century, worked its way through a steady, unrelenting beat of whispers and rumours, the regular evidence-less accusations of men such as Sarfraz Nawaz, the continued presence of tainted players, countless performances about which questions had to be asked, to finally crescendo with the mighty cacophony of Lord's 2010.
With the guilty verdicts against Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif and a guilty plea by Mohammad Amir - who faces a separate hearing in front of the judge, but without a jury today - all doubt should now cease.
There was no conspiracy against them or Pakistan and no set-up. The evidence was watertight enough for an independent sports tribunal and a criminal investigation to act upon. They did wrong and they must now pay their dues. There should be no escaping from that truth.
In actual fact, that doubt should have been erased after the Doha hearings by the International Cricket Council (ICC) that found the trio guilty and banned them for a minimum of five years each.
That hearing alone should have meant that, there should not have been surprise at the events in London's Southwark Crown Court yesterday.
But such is the reputation of the ICC and the mood within Pakistan that acceptance was not forthcoming.
That denial was most evident in the continued presence of Butt, for example, on television channels, even - particularly remarkable this - as a cricket analyst earlier this year during the World Cup.
The world though is not right and hope is always scarce, nowhere more than in Pakistan.
More names from Pakistan have been floated ever since the scandal first broke. They were again name-checked prominently during the trial. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the ICC's anti-corruption unit may renew investigations against them. This is the case's collateral damage.
They must be assumed to be innocent of course, but that will not matter now for these taints are difficult to wash off. If they have a case to answer, the ICC and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) must take concrete action immediately, either to banish or confirm those suspicions. To leave it lingering will leave us back in 2000, when the Qayyum commission found some guilty of corruption and many neither guilty nor innocent.
It will also put to naught the many anti-corruption measures the PCB brought in last year, some of which look and sound comprehensive.
As ever with the PCB, ideas are not as much a problem as their execution and for them to work there must be stability in administration and continuing vigilance. On the field Pakistan have moved on, as they always do, and new heroes might already be emerging. But, if action is not taken swiftly, that music will continue to play on.
At least cricket can now say a definitive precedent has been set. That was also the case with the Doha tribunal but a successful criminal prosecution grants it even further solidity. Three cricketers have been pursued for corruption. They have not only been banned from the game, they now face time in jail.
As deterrents go, there cannot be a more daunting one for future cricketers who may be tempted.
And for the three individuals, is there sadness that they are lost? There was when the scandal first broke and there was when they were then banned from the game, particularly at losing bowlers as gifted as Amir and Asif. Their careers had already been broken by the time of the trial.
But now their lives stand to be, which evokes an altogether different, indescribable emotion. It can only be captured by the news of the birth of Butt's second child, a boy, born about an hour before the verdict was delivered; a life created just as one responsible for it was all but finished.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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