(Cricinfo) A couple of hundred protestors were at Lahore airport when the three Pakistan players at the centre of the spot-fixing scandal returned home yesterday morning.
Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt left through a back exit away from the people carrying banners and waving shoes.
There was also support for the players inside the terminal with one sign saying: “Long live Salman Butt.”
As reported by ESPNcricinfo on Thursday, their return does not, however, mean they are cleared from the ongoing criminal investigation. Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik said the government of Pakistan would provide a written assurance that the players be made available if needed for further investigations. “We have spoken to Scotland Yard, and the [Pakistan] high commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, has also been in talks with them and they have agreed that the players can return to Pakistan,” Malik told ESPNcricinfo.
