Kevin Pietersen: Mohammad Amir shouldn't play for Pakistan again

Pietersen believes that the players involved in spot-fixing shouldn't play international cricket again

Kevin Pietersen believes that Mohammad Amir should not be allowed to play for Pakistan again after his involvement in spot-fixing in the 2010 Lord’s Test, reports ESPN Cricinfo.

In his latest book Kevin Pietersen on Cricket, which is a follow-up to his controversial autobiography that came out last year made these comments on Amir, whose five-year ICC ban ended in September 2015.

"I know Mohammad Amir was only 18 when he got into trouble, and that he was a special talent," Pietersen says. "I also know that he and Mohammad Asif were from poor backgrounds and were offered a hell of a lot of money for a few seconds' work.

"But I don't care; they should not be coming back. I don't feel badly towards them and I wish them well in their lives, but the game is bigger than us, the game will be around a lot longer than us, and we don't have the right to steal from it.

"We play fairly, we play tough, we play positively, we play negatively, people play the way that they want to play. But there's no place in the game for corruption, and if you get caught you have to be given a life ban."

Although Amir has vowed that he will turn over a new leaf and said he ”will return with honesty and dignity”, Pietersen believes that those involved in spot-fixing shouldn’t be shown no mercy.

On his experience when he first found out about the news, he said: "When the spot-fixing story broke… that day was the worst I've experienced in cricket. The guys didn't even want to bowl to them, we didn't celebrate the wickets that we took; everything about it was horrendous.

“We just felt so much anger towards them. We could not believe what they'd done. Match-fixing, spot-fixing - I'm fierce about anything like that. If you're caught you should never play again, because we have an amazing game.

“There are so many honest blokes out there, trying their hardest and committing to everything to make a living, and if you're cheating then sorry, I'm afraid that's got to be it."

Pietersen was involved in a warm-up game for Natal against South Africa, during which the then Proteas skipper Hansie Cronje went away from the field to take a message. The following day was when the newspapers had picked on his match-fixing tendencies and Cronje’s career was disgraced.

“I'm not a person who has lived a perfect life," Pietersen said. "I don't think that anybody has the right to judge anybody: if you make mistakes, you make mistakes. We all do, because nobody's perfect and I was raised to recognise that.

“He(Cronje) obviously just loved money and got into the wrong scenario. So once he'd apologised and been punished, I was proud of how the country forgave him and happy that he could stay a hero. But that doesn't mean I disagreed with his life ban.”

The English batsmen’s statement comes on the back of Hafeez’s decision to turn down a lucrative offer to play in the BPL because he didn’t want to play with Amir, who will represent Chittagong Vikings.