Amir’s story begins in a small village called Changa Bangyaal on the outskirts of Gujjar Khan, a city one or two hour’s drive south-east of Rawalpindi.
He was born the second youngest of a large family, to a father who was a watchman at a government school.
There wasn’t much money, but there was a television and cricket, an enthusiasm of Amir’s father, became a passion for the young boy through watching the great Pakistan players of the 1990s: Wasim Akram, for example, possibly the greatest left-arm quick bowler to play the game, who became Amir’s hero, and Waqar Younis, Akram’s erstwhile opening partner, who became Amir’s coach when he joined the Pakistan team.
There was no cricket ground in Changya Bangyaal, but there were fields and dusty flatlands and Amir would play for hours after school, using, in the absence of proper cricket balls, a soft ball wrapped with tape.
Not until he went to the Bajwa Academy in Rawalpindi did he use a hardball with a seam. At first the seam confused him (and cut his fingers); he didn’t know what it was for. Akram was his idol, copied from afar, but Amir was essentially self-taught and natural.
The boys of his age in the village offered little competition and as well as playing against his brothers he was often drafted into knock-about matches against boys who were much older. Shortly after he had been spotted in a tape-ball competition,it was decided, against his mother’s wishes, that he should go on a cricket scholarship to an academy in Rawalpindi, run by Asif Bajwa.
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Bajwa became, in the way of things, much more than a cricket coach to Amir. He became a father figure and a mentor. Amir says that his relationship with the Bajwa Academy is on-going and doesn’t think that it will ever end.
He says that even when he started playing for Pakistan, whenever he went to Rawalpindi he would always go and visit Bajwa and stay with him.
He says that everything that he will achieve or has achieved in his career is thanks to the prayers and goodwill of his parents and the support he has had from Bajwa.
This support has underpinned his entire cricketing education and it is going to be central to his rehabilitation.
During the crisis that enveloped Amir in the summer of 2010, the phone records show that Amir and Bajwa were in regular contact — when Bajwa’s name appears in the phone data it is as if an angel appears amongst demons — as they have been throughout his ensuing ordeal.
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One text message that has been recovered from Amir’s phone on the last morning of the Oval Test, says: “ok, sir, god willing I will try my best. Tomorrow morning I was calling you but it looked as if you were busy. I will call you after the match. I am going to the ground now.”
After Pakistan’s victory that day, there are two calls between the two from Amir’s mobile on Kensington High Street, totalling just over 20 minutes.
Everything in the Bajwa Academy — accommodation, food, expert coaching- was given to Amir for free. He shared a dormitory with three other boys on a cricket scholarship programme, in a hostel with about 30-35 other boys.
The academic school day ran from about 8 am to 2pm, and then cricket took place from 3pm until 6.30, with homework set thereafter. It was no idyll, but it was, at least, an education and one that Amir enjoyed.
When he was 15 he was sent for trials for the Pakistan Under-19 team.Twenty or so of the 30 boys who trialled were selected for a camp at the National Academy in Lahore and Amir was one of those and he was staggered by the facilities — the swimming pool, gym, cricket nets - that greeted him.
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Eventually he was selected for the Pakistan Under-19 team to tour Australia in April 2007. It was at the National Academy that Amir met Salman Butt for the first time.
Butt was, by this time, playing for Pakistan so was well known to the under-19 players, both for his cricketing skills and background, which was, by Pakistan standards, well-to-do.
Amir remembers: “When I first met Salman he was a senior player and he was a star for Pakistan and I was a junior but he had a very good image amongst the juniors. It wasn’t that he was only nice to me, he was close to all the juniors, cracking jokes and socialising with them and being pleasant to them.
“When we turned up for practice, he’d give gloves to anyone who needed them or a bat to others. He was educated, well behaved and most of the time the seniors did not mingle with the juniors the way he did. Because of that and because of the way he treated the juniors differently, I thought he was a nice man.”
In some ways, Butt championed Amir’s cause, and it was no coincidence that Amir came to play for the same domestic team, the National Bank, one that has produced many Pakistan Test cricketers.
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Amir’s rise was not uninterrupted. He suffered a debilitating bout of dengue fever on a tour of Malaysia and, as many young bowlers do, suffered from serious back pain (stress fractures in L3 and L5), a combination presumably of a body that was still maturing and a lack of control over how much cricket he was playing.
Those at the National Academy wanted to remodel his action to prevent further spinal injuries but Amir resisted such advice and eventually the pain subsided. He first heard of his selection for the Pakistan national team through the media, and then he was at the Bajwa Academy when someone from the Pakistan Cricket Board phoned him with confirmation and to tell him to get ready for a camp at the National Academy.
He remembers that his mum called him and told him to pray “two rakats” and to thank God, which he did. Bajwa, he remembers, was not at the Academy at that moment, but he rang with congratulations and, later, when he returned, gave Amir a big hug.
Read more of Mike Atherton’s investigation here
Introduction: why Amir’s story must be told
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Part one: The rapid rise of Amir
Part two: The fall from grace
Part three: The nature of the fix
Part four: The mysterious ‘Ali’
Part five: The failed fix at The Oval
Part six: Amir is persuaded to fix
Part seven: my friend Butt let me down