Tainted former Pakistan captain Saleem Malik has requested the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to drop his lifetime match-fixing ban and give him a second chance to serve the country.
Malik further said that he deserves a second chance like other players in the country and urged the PCB to help fulfill his goal to take up coaching by giving him a coaching role at any capacity.
Read Also: Pakistan's tour of Netherlands postponed indefinitely due to Coronavirus crisis
The erstwhile batting great was banned for life from cricket in 2000 by the PCB following the allegations of offering a bribe to some Australian cricketers including Shane Warne, Mark Waugh, and Tim May to underperform in 1994-95 Karachi Test – the scandal rocked the cricket world.
However, a local court in Lahore overturned the ban in October 2008, but Malik’s career was ended in a disgrace as neither the PCB and nor the International Cricket Council (ICC) reconsidered him.
Well, 20 years later, the 57-year-old argued that other players guilty of corruption like Mohammad Amir, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, and Sharjeel Khan – all have been allowed to return to the game, then why not he while asking for another chance at redemption.
Butt, Asif, and Amir were suspended by the PCB for five years in a spot-fixing case in 2010, while Sharjeel was handed a similar sentence in 2017.
Read Also: Inzamam feels Saleem Malik should get a second chance like Mohammad Azharuddin
Malik said in a video message, “I have wanted to serve my country and players as a coach. Just like other cricketers, I deserve a second chance, PCB should give me any kind of responsibility as I want to develop young cricketers from my vast experience of the game.”
He also thanked his former teammates who are supporting him for a very long time, “I would like to thank Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saqlain Mushtaq, Rashid Latif and Shoaib Akhtar for their kind words for me,”
The former captain also claimed that he had spent years lobbying the PCB to reverse the ban and even applied to be Pakistan’s batting coach in 2012 and was also in contention for the head coaching job at the National Cricket Academy in 2008 but was ignored on both occasions.
He signed off by saying, “Whenever I tried to serve as a coach, I was not considered. Mohammad Amir, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, and Sharjeel Khan have been playing but I have been ignored.”
Noteworthy, Malik, who made his international debut in 1982, scored 5,768 runs in 103 Tests and 7,110 in 283 one-day internationals for Pakistan before retiring in 1999.
(With AFP Inputs)
