England giving ‘cheats’ Pak silent treatment: Broad

LONDON - England is giving Pakistan the silent treatment despite sharing the same hotel in Bangladesh as they fine tune their World Cup preparations.

Huge differences still exist between England and Shahid Afridi’s men after last summer’s spot-fixing scandal.

Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were all slapped with lengthy bans after an ICC tribunal found them guilty of a conspiracy to bowl no balls to order.

Pacer Broad said: “We’ve seen them but not spoken to them. And it’s not like we’ve been going out for dinner with them. Obviously it was a tough summer for us last year, all England players will say the same.”

“We enjoyed playing the cricket but off-the-field incidents did damage our wonderful summer,” The Sun quoted Broad, as saying.

Tensions increased between the two teams in last summer’s one-day series after the tainted Pak trio had been exposed by the News of the World.

England was then incensed by ridiculous counter-accusations of fixing from Pakistan chairman Ijaz Butt, which he eventually withdrew.

And batsman Jonathan Trott followed that by clashing with Pakistan fast bowler Wahab Riaz in the nets ahead of the one-dayer at Lords.

Broad said the team must keep their cool and concentrate fully on their cricket when they play today’s warm-up game in Fatullah.

“You’ve got to move on. It’s international sport and we’ve got a job to do to prepare for our World Cup campaign - that’s our sole focus,” he said. (ANI)