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Pakistan's Mohammad Asif plots test comeback in Norway after spot-fixing scandal

He was jailed and also banned for five years after being caught bowling no-balls to order against England at Lord’s in 2010, but is eyeing a return to the national team

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Pakistan cricketer Mohammad Asif speaks during a press conference in Karachi in 2013. Photo: EPA
Agence France-Presse

Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif has ended up playing in Norway as he plots a return to test cricket, five years after a notorious spot-fixing scandal, a report said.

Asif, 33, told the Cricinfo website he was playing with Oslo’s Christiania Cricket Club to work on his fitness and was “100 per cent sure” he’d play for Pakistan again.

Asif was caught bowling no-balls to order against England at Lord’s in 2010, an offence which landed him with a jail term and a five-year ban.

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“One of my friends called me to ask me to come and play some cricket,” he said, of his arrival in the cricketing backwater.

“There’s good weather for training – that’s why I came here. The cricketing standard is not too high but it’s still cricket.”

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Mohammad Asif arrives at Southwark Crown Court in central London in November 2011. Photo: AFP
Mohammad Asif arrives at Southwark Crown Court in central London in November 2011. Photo: AFP

Asif’s one-time new-ball partner Mohammad Amir, now 24, is back in the Pakistan squad despite his involvement in the spot-fixing and is in line to return to test cricket – uncannily, at Lord’s – next month.

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