LONDON: England cricketers Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad insisted Tuesday that the limited overs internationals against Pakistan should go ahead despite the betting scam allegations engulfing the tourists.
The Nottinghamshire bowlers said the two Twenty20 games in Cardiff and the following, five-match one-day international series should be played.
Seamer Broad said the England dressing room was still in a "state of shock" over the "spot-fixing" allegations which emerged Sunday.
"The one-day series should go on, as far as I`m concerned," the 24-year-old wrote in the Daily Mail newspaper.
"We shouldn`t call it off on the back of an investigation that is ongoing. We want to play and what about the supporters who have paid for tickets?
"It is up to others to decide whether any of the Pakistan players involved in those allegations should miss those games, but we will be giving our utmost against whoever we face. And we trust the opposition will be, too."
Broad set the second-highest ever Test score made by a number nine batsman after his 169 -- his first century in first-class cricket -- in the fourth and final Test against Pakistan.
Largely thanks to his heroics, England won the match at Lord`s here on Sunday to take the series 3-1.
"I never dreamt there was anything untoward about our victories," Broad said.
"I have absolutely no doubts that Pakistan were giving everything to try to win that match.
"When Pakistan did not come out to practise on the fourth day (Sunday), it did cross our minds that we might have another forfeited Test on our hands.
"When we shook hands with their players afterwards -- and there was never any suggestion that we weren`t going to do that -- we just said the normal things even though it seemed wrong somehow to celebrate as strongly as we would normally do.
"I shook hands and said `well played` to all their players in the Long Room as we made our way back upstairs."
He added: "I have never been approached by anyone asking me to manipulate any aspect of any cricket match and I am absolutely certain that none of my team-mates have either.
"Still, as the son of an International Cricket Council match referee, I can`t imagine any match-fixer would be daft enough to approach me anyway!"
Britain`s News of the World newspaper claimed it had paid middleman Mazhar Majeed 150,000 pounds (230,000 dollars, 185,000 euros) for advance details of three no-balls in the Lord`s Test, bowled by Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif.
Spinner Graeme Swann insisted the one-day fixtures should nonetheless be fulfilled.
"I`m keen for them to go ahead," he wrote in The Sun newspaper.
"As a player, I love one-day cricket and, with nothing proved, I will have no problem whatsoever about who I play against."
The 31-year-old off-spinner added: "What I want most is that cricket gets back in the papers for the right reasons -- for an unbelievable hundred or a great spell of bowling.
"Mohammad Amir has bowled superbly all summer and I hope someone can get to the bottom of all this.
"It`s terrible for cricket to have something like this hanging over it. Once more, the game is making the front pages for the wrong reasons.
"We want a clean game and the spectators deserve that. All I know is that I`ve been part of a hard-fought Test series that has unfortunately finished in a strange, surreal atmosphere."
BDST: 1352HRS, August 31, 2010
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