NO ICC AWARDS FOR THE SUSPENDED TRIO

In the backdrop of the spot-fixing scandal and the corruption charges, ICC issued a statement on Thursday that Mohammed Aamer and Mohammed Asif have been removed from the list of nominations in the ICC Annual Cricket Awards.

Aamer had been nominated under ICC's Emerging Player of the Year Award and Asif had been nominated under ICC's Test Player of the Year Award.

These two bowlers have been brilliant over the last few months for Pakistan's cricket. So if the allegations against them are true (which they are, to my mind - it is almost impossible to believe that there might have been a coincidence or a frame-up), these two will have to suffer dire consequences, along with the cricket in Pakistan.

If these men were under-performing and yet they had been nominated to ICC's Awards, I wonder how good they would have been had they been playing their best cricket!

However, I do believe that ICC has taken a good step in suspending these two and their captain Salman Butt from cricket. We live in a society that says you are innocent until proven guilty... but when the society has seen the overwhelming evidence against those involved, one has to take a different stand!

For a change, ICC has been pro-active and did not wait for investigations to be completed. There was a big chance that this case would get involved in the web of bureaucracy so prominently existent in cricket's administration. That is why, ICC's decision to suspend the 'tainted trio' holds even more significance.