It seems to me that there are only two interpretations that follow on from Amir’s version of events. Either you believe him, which doesn’t in any way exonerate him from the guilt of the no-balls at Lord’s, but does provide some context and understanding of the hole he found himself in and the pressure he was under - context that suggests that much of the basis upon which he was imprisoned and banned from the game was false. Or you don’t believe him.
Instead, you believe Majeed, who said in his conversations with the journalist that Amir was corrupt. And you believe Butt, who used the opportunity granted by Amir’s guilty plea and silence at court, to round on him and describe him as far removed from the innocent naïf that others have painted him as.
Me? I thank God that I did not, at 17 years of age, find myself in the kind of dressing room that Amir walked into. In my 25 years playing and watching international cricket, I cannot think of a story that has sickened me more.
Think for a moment about what Amir was feeling as he ran up to bowl those two no-balls. This was a young bowler absolutely on top of his game. Here he was, not only playing but playing brilliantly but having also to think about bowling two deliberate no-balls.
“I can’t tell you how horrible I was feeling,” he says. “I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing?’
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“I knew it was wrong, and that I was cheating cricket. No matter how minute the dishonest deed, at the end of the day cheating is cheating. Every day I played the game, I wanted to be the best I could be and here I was doing this stuff and at Lord’s. On the other hand I was thinking how kind they were being to me and that they were helping me.
“Before the second no-ball, Salman said to me, ‘You remember?’ I felt sick again. I felt like I was killing myself. I remember being in a state of panic I was so scared.
“At lunchtime, the coach Waqar said to me, ‘What the hell is going on?’ I couldn’t look at him, I was panicking so much, and sitting there in silence ashamed of myself, so I just started to tie my shoelaces. That was when Salman said to Waqar that he told me to run forward and bowl a bouncer.”
Amir, of course, was in the middle of a magnificent spell of bowling before he bowled the second no-ball, but his moment was tarnished.
“When you cheat to achieve a goal through a short-cut then you lack the heartfelt satisfaction that you would have experienced otherwise,” he says. “And that is how it was for me; I had none of that profound contentment. I knew that whatever was happening was wrong.
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“Memories of the first time that I visited Lord’s were also rushing through my mind. We had come here on an under-19 tour in 2007 and I had said to my friend that I would come back one day and give an outstanding performance for Pakistan. You know that if you perform well at Lord’s it boosts your image and you go down in cricketing history. Those wickets were cherished as my best ones but also my worst.”
In the days that followed, Amir starved himself through worry. He says that he could scarcely eat for days, and didn’t drink so that he began cramping. “I felt as though I had been shot dead by someone. I was so worried and I a state of absolute panic. I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I did not belong to this world any more.”
Amir’s conversations with me have thrown some light on the nature of fixing. He insists that he knew nothing of Asif’s no-ball. The notion of an overarching syndicate or mafia-like organisation is clearly false. Fixes that happened were clearly based on friendships and loyalties within the team and would have been known only to those involved. The story also reveals something of the cunning of the fixers, and just how vulnerable young players can be. “It is not by pointing a gun to you head that they trap you,” Amir says. “It is not written on anybody’s head that they are a bookie or a fixer. They befriend you and get you with kindness. They eventually succeed in trapping you somehow.”
It was Amir’s misfortune to have Salman Butt as a friend. How does he feel about him now? “I am sometimes angry but also sorry for his family. He is in prison and has been banned for ten years. What more can I do to him now?”
As for Mazhar Majeed, Amir is more sanguine. “He is the only one who has said sorry to me.”
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The regrets are many, principally why he failed to come clean earlier.
“I just didn’t have the courage, I was scared. Everybody was saying, ‘I can help you, I can help you’ and I didn’t have clue who to trust. After all the man who I had trusted the most had got me in trouble. When I finally pleaded guilty, it was such a burden off me. I felt a profound sense of relief. I couldn’t put up with the lying anymore.”
The last time I talked with Amir was just before he returned home to Pakistan. He was looking thinner and frailer than people would remember, although still striking with his glossy black hair.
Initially in prison, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to try and play cricket again, even if cricket would ever want him back or how the Pakistan team would react to him. Now after his release, he has started to think about the possibilities again, even though he has a long way to go until his ban is lifted.
His main motivation for speaking to me was simply to tell his story and let people know the circumstances surrounding the Lord’s match. He has to live in Pakistan for the rest of his life and, regardless of whether he plays cricket again, he does not want to be known as a match-fixer.
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He remains profoundly regretful. At no stage did he put this regret more eloquently than his statement in the trial, immediately after being sentenced to prison: “Last year was the most amazing year of my life, but it was also the worst year. I got myself into a situation that I didn’t understand. I panicked and did the wrong thing. I don’t want to blame anyone else. I didn’t want the money at all. I got trapped and in the end it was because of my own stupidity … I apologise to everyone for what I did and that I did not accept responsibility earlier.”
Those who have spent time counselling him, say that his moods swing from confusion, to anger, to resignation, to relief that he has been able to recognise the dangerous path he was travelling down, back to depression. It is clear to those closest to him that if he is forced to sit out of cricket for the full term of his ban, he will find it impossible to play again.
Whatever lies ahead for him, things will not be easy. The reaction in Pakistan of those who previously viewed him as a hero will test him to the limit. As he ponders these difficulties, he would do well to heed the words of Dryden:
“The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent and easy is the way;
But, to return, to view the cheerful skies;
In this, the task and mighty labour lies.”
Read more of Mike Atherton’s investigation here
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Introduction: why Amir’s story must be told
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