PCB leaves out suspended trio

Karachi:

The Pakistan Cricket Board has cleared the outstanding dues of the national team, pending since the Twenty 20 World Cup in April-May but has withheld payments of the suspended trio of Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammed Asif.

Wasim Bari the chief operating officer of the board confirmed that the PCB finance department had cleared all the outstanding payments including match and tour fees along with bonuses.

"The payments were held up due to some technical reasons but they were cleared as soon as the Chairman approved the payments," Bari said.

He declined to confirm whether payments were made to the suspended trio as well. But when contacted Asif confirmed they were still awaiting their payments.

"We have not received anything from the board including our match and tour fees and central contract salaries since the last few months despite several reminders," Asif said.

"I can understand the board not paying us for the England tour where the allegations were made against us and we were suspended but we don't understand why they are not paying us for the events before the England series including the T20 World Cup and Asia Cup," he said.

Asif said roughly the board had to pay around six to seven million rupees to each of the three suspended players.

"We are also fighting the legal cases ourselves so it is getting difficult for us because we have not received any payment for a while now and the board should reconsider paying us for the events before the England tour," he added.

There was lot of hue and cry raised over the delay in payments to the players and they were fears this was because of the fragile financial position of the board.