What do the grown-ups among you make of that?

Is it an opportunistic excuse based on the claims of Zulqarnain Haider or could it be the truth? If it’s the latter, how are non-physical threats going to keep you from giving evidence that might prevent a jail term?

Well, while writing this, we’ve just heard that Amir’s going to appeal, so maybe that’s what that’s about. Either way, someone should have a word with Ijaz Butt. He’s picking up the bookies circle loud and clear. He’ll know what’s going on.

“Please don’t let it be the kid,” said Nasser Hussain at the start of all of this. He spoke for most of us.

We wanted Mohammad Amir to be innocent, but it turns out that he wasn’t and believing that he might have become a future great makes no sense now that the facts are in.

He won’t be a future great and there is a very good reason for that.

A test of character

Cricket, and Test cricket in particular, is a test of character. In fact, over the course of a career, it’s a test of everything. The great players weren’t necessarily the only ones with extraordinary skill at their disposal. They were also the ones who gave themselves the best chance of proving how good they were.

Take Dale Steyn for example

He is currently considered the best bowler in the world. Is that simply because he’s the most skilful? No, it’s not.

Some bowlers have had better opening spells, but Steyn stays strong all day. Other bowlers have taken more wickets in an innings, but Steyn bowls well almost every innings. Some bowlers have had fewer setbacks, but Steyn has responded better to the ones he’s had.

He’s had bad days and injuries and he’s wealthy enough that he doesn’t need to play. Yet he does. He hasn’t got lazy; he hasn’t got fat; he hasn’t grown dispirited or disillusioned; and as far as any of us know, he hasn’t accepted money to bowl any no-balls.

Failings

Being persuaded to fix elements of cricket matches is a failing. It knackers your career even more comprehensively than other failings, like lack of skill, lack of fitness or wealth-induced complacency, which is what keeps so many promising cricketers from achieving their potential.

We are not going to mourn the loss of Mohammad Amir, because even if he was pressured into doing what he did, he doesn’t seem to have resisted strongly enough. He was found wanting.

People are idiots. That’s a rule that pretty much always stands up to scrutiny. Put people in a position where there’s a choice to make and they will naturally veer towards the stupid option by default.

Even so, some options are sufficiently stupid that most of us don’t take them. With a huge, heavy Le Creuset pan full of curry in the oven, you can either take it out with your bare hands or you can put on the oven gloves. Most people will go for the oven gloves.

The remaining people can be split into two further subcategories. There are people who scald their hands and think “Christ, I’m never doing that again” and then there are a very small number of people who try and return the pan to the oven bare-handed after stirring the contents.

Mohammad Asif

The latter are the people who can’t be helped. Simply sit them down in front of ITV1 and just pray that they don’t ever attempt to do anything again in the whole of the rest of their lives. We’re pretty sure that Mohammad Asif fits into this category. If he lost a finger in a Philips blender, he would probably still need to be told to keep his hand out of an active Kenwood blender.

Mohammad Amir, on the other hand, is hopefully the kind of man who only needs to sear his fingertips the once and he deserves a chance to prove it. A five year ban is a long time out of the game, but you can’t appreciate the significance of a second chance without knowing there were consequences when you stuffed up the first time.

And Salman Butt?

We’re not sure where we stand on him. Older than Amir, but not that old, criticism of him seems to revolve around the fact that he should have known better because he’s ’smart’ or something. Well clearly he isn’t that smart because he’s just been banned from cricket for a decade. Middle-class people who speak good English can be pretty damn thick as well and maybe they too should be allowed the opportunity to take or spurn a second chance.

If Amir or Butt are ever to take a second chance, they could start by acknowledging one thing – that those bans are not merely punishment for themselves; more importantly, they are a deterrent to others. A reformed cricketer would acknowledge wrongdoing and accept a fitting punishment that would serve the greater good of the sport.

Is there any chance of that?

If you actually enjoy cricket, you can’t help but have enjoyed watching Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamer and Umar Gul bowl yesterday. It was better than spoon meat and carbonated dipping jam.

That they bowled Australia out for 88 was something of a bonus. Quite simply, this was cricket LIKE IT’S MEANT TO BE. These three bowlers actually had a choice as to what they did with the ball, swinging it in and out and seaming it as well. They didn’t just ‘put it in the right areas’ hoping for the best. They had plans, they were devious and they were flat-out ace.

It makes it so much more interesting. What will the next ball do? How will the batsman cope? There was no ‘plugging away outside off’. There was no ‘waiting for the bad ball’. There was an actual battle going on out there because for once it wasn’t a batsman with a tank and air strikes against a bowler with a blindfold on and his knees tied together.

It was Test cricket.

To be a Pakistani cricketer, you have to at some point do something demented. Mohammad Aaamer today obliged and can now be considered the genuine article. He hit 73 not out, batting at 10, after Pakistan had been 101-9.

Pakistan still contrived to lose the match by seven runs, because they never want you to think you know what’s going to happen. There is no plot when it comes to Pakistan, only a never-ending series of events that may or may not be connected.