Pakistan to maintain vigilant watch on players

The move comes less than two weeks after former Pakistan captain Salman Butt and fast bowler Mohammad Asif were found guilty of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments at Southwark Crown Court in London.

A third, teenage paceman Mohammad Amir, had already admitted his part in the plot to bowl fraudulent no-balls during the Lord’s Test against England in August 2010.

The high-profile court cases, and subsequent guilty verdicts, have raised awareness of betting in sport and Ashraf is adamant the PCB will be at the forefront of reform.

“My immediate plans are that I am setting up a vigilance division in my cricket board and there we are going to keep a very strict eye and bring in very strict discipline so that my players, wherever they are, don’t get in touch with people who try to drag them into such negative business.

“We want to discourage that, we want to eliminate that.

“We have to be a respectable board, we have to work with the English Cricket Board, with the rest of the world and we have to move forward.”

International cricket in Pakistan has been suspended since March 2009, when a bus carrying the Sri Lanka team was attacked in Lahore. They have played recent ‘home’ fixtures in the United Arab Emirates.

A 224-run partnership between VVS Laxman and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni put India on top against the West Indies on day two of the second Test in Kolkata.

Centuries from Laxman and Dhoni, together with an opening-day 100 by Rahul Dravid, saw India reach 631-7dec before the West Indies reached 34-2 at the close of play at Eden Gardens.

Following the dismissals of Adrian Barath and Kraigg Brathwaite, the tourists were 597 in arrears when bad light forced a premature end.