Taunton, England: The three Pakistan cricketers at the center of fixing allegations were dropped for the rest of the team's England tour on Thursday, shortly before they appeared for questioning by investigators of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Team manager Yawar Saeed said bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir and test captain Salman Butt will not play in the remaining Twenty20 and one-day international matches. He insisted they had not been suspended.
Saeed said that 13 players will be available for the two Twenty20 matches before three replacements arrive to bolster the squad for the five-match one-day series.
"The T20 squad will remain what it is here this morning, i.e. 13 people," Saeed said in Taunton, where Pakistan was playing a warmup game against English county side Somerset. "When we play the one-day internationals, we will be asking for replacements to make the squad up to 16."
Saeed, who had earlier said the trio would continue playing unless police laid criminal charges against them, did not say who the replacements would be.
The England and Wales Cricket Board welcomed the decision by Pakistan not to include the three players in its limited-overs squads.
"We can assure cricket fans across the country that the matches will be played in the most competitive spirit long associated with contests between England and Pakistan," EBC chairman Giles Clarke said.
Asif, Amir and Butt were at the Pakistan High Commission in London on Thursday for questioning by a Pakistan Cricket Board investigation.
Butt, Asif and Aamer had to be given a police escort as they entered the building in Knightsbridge. About 10 police officers guided the trio into the building amid a throng of reporters and TV crews.
All three refused to answer questions after arriving in a car with blacked out windows.
British newspaper the News of the World alleged on Sunday that Amir and Asif were paid to deliberately bowl no-balls in the opening day of the fourth Test against England at Lord's last week.
Butt and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal were also implicated in the story.
Asif, Amir and Butt had their mobile phones confiscated by police, who also searched hotel rooms and questioned players on Saturday as part of an investigation also involving the International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.
Shahid Afridi is leading the team in its limited-overs matches, starting with a game against Somerset.
"Obviously, if they have done something bad, you need to give them a punishment," Afridi said. "But I think we are still waiting for the results.
"It will be a really tough series and I think everyone is trying to focus on the cricket now. We are ready to play some good cricket."
The spot-fixing allegations are the latest blow to cricket in Pakistan, which has not hosted any international matches since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team and match officials in March 2009.
Clarke, who is also chairman of the ICC's Pakistan Task Team, said he hoped the incident did not slow Pakistan's reintegration into world cricket.
"I look forward to working with Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, Ijaz Butt, the chairman of the PCB, and everybody involved in Pakistan cricket in taking forward cricket in Pakistan so that a plan exists for the whole of Pakistan cricket, given all the many and varied issues which it's up against," Clarke added.
Clarke said last month that plans were being made for an ICC World XI to play a match in Pakistan.
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