KARACHI, June 9: Pakistan has hired a psychologist to help in the rehabilitation of paceman Mohammad Aamir who was convicted and banned in a spot-fixing scandal, an official said on Saturday.

Aamir, 20, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were sent to prison for their parts in a spot-fixing scandal and banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for a minimum of five years.

“We have hired Maqsood Babri to counsel Aamir as part of his rehabilitation,” Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) spokesman Nadeem Sarwar said. “The sessions of counselling will start soon and in this regard we are in touch with the ICC also.”

While banning the trio, the ICC anti-corruption tribunal led by Michael Beloff had advised the ICC and PCB to rehabilitate the three players.  Aamir recently appeared in an ICC anti-corruption educational video warning the future players of the pitfalls of spot-fixing.

Babri said he will do his best to help Aamir. “It’s a challenge for me but I will do my best to counsel Aamir so that he can find his way back into cricket,” he said.—AFP