Salman Butt, ex-Pak captain banned in 2010 for spot-fixing, joins PCB's umpiring course

Pakistan's former opening batsman Salman Butt who was banned from Cricket for almost 10 years for the spot-fixing scandal in 2010 has reportedly applied for the PCB's umpiring and match referee course. Going by the reports of Cricket Pakistan, various cricketers of Pakistan including  Abdul Rauf, Bilal Asif, Salman Butt, and Shoaib Khan have applied for Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) umpiring and match referee program. 

The report stated that PCB has introduced the umpiring and match referee course in three levels-- Level1, 2, and 3 in order to develop match officials. Phase 1 of the program has been already concluded in which the appearing candidates had to give online lectures on umpiring rules and regulations.

Pakistan spot-fixing scandal

Notably, Salman Butt was one of the players who was punished for his involvement in the spot-fixing scandal in the 2010 Test match against England at Lord's. Apart from Salman Butt, premier pacer Mohammad Amir and medium-pacer Mohammad Asif were also punished for their involvement in the scandal. While Amir made his way back into the Pakistan team in February 2016, the former opener and Asif never played for the national team thereafter. It is to be noted that Salman Butt was the skipper of Pakistan in which the spot-fixing scandal took place. 

'Rohit Sharma is a better captain than Virat Kohli,' says Salman Butt

Meanwhile, Salman Butt makes YouTube videos on cricket and recently he called Team India's opener Rohit Sharma a better opener than Virat Kohli. Salman Butt said that according to him Rohit Sharma is a better captain than Virat Kohli. He added that he had observed the captaincy of Rohit Sharma during the Asia Cup which was held in the year 2018. The former Pakistan cricket captain felt that the way Rohit Sharma operated as a stand-in captain looked very natural.

He further talked about the captaincy of Virat Kohli saying that team India were on top for five years but sadly couldn’t win the biggest match of all, so people are bound to raise questions. He added by saying that you can be a very good captain but if you don’t win any title, masses won’t remember you. 

(Image Credits: AP/@TheRealPCBMedia/Twitter)