Amir admits he’s lucky to be playing again

ISLAMABAD: Fast bowler Mohammad Amir thinks he’s lucky to re-don the Pakistan green cap.

The left-arm fast bowler was 18 years old when he bowled deliberate no-balls in a Test match at Lord’s and was slapped with a five-year ban from all forms of cricket by the ICC.

During his suspension for spot-fixing, Amir even spent time in a prison in England before being released for good behaviour.

The other two culprits in the same offence – Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif – are still awaiting their return to international cricket despite their five-year bans being lifted last year.

But a much matured Amir passed through the rehabilitation programme and is set to return to Lord’s next month.

Amir has played one-day internationals and Twenty20s since his ban was lifted on September 3 last year, but his return to Test cricket will be at the same Lord’s ground where the doors of international cricket were shut on him in 2010.

“To be honest I never thought about my comeback, and I feel lucky to play test cricket again,” Amir told Associated Press as he prepared to leave for England yesterday.

“You call it a coincidence or whatever, but to me it is a blessing that I am starting right from where I stopped in 2010. I might have made my comeback months ago, but Test cricket is what I was looking forward to, and this is my real comeback.”

Amir had made his mark in his brief 13 months of Test cricket when he grabbed 51 wickets in 14 Test matches against teams like Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia and England before he was suspended.

Such was his accuracy, even the legendary Wasim Akram once said he couldn’t have bowled much better than Amir when he was an 18-year-old.

Amir also realises he has missed crucial time, otherwise he could have achieved more laurels.

“I missed five of the best years of my life and had I continued playing cricket, everyone knows where I would have been standing today (in international cricket),” he said.

Alastair Cook said he did not have a problem with playing against Amir in the forthcoming Test series, but the England skipper wanted the ICC to be much stricter and slap life bans on fixing offenders.

Amir also endorsed Cook’s point of view. – ANA-AP