Any Pakistan player found guilty of match-fixing during the fourth Test against England at Lord's should be banned for life, former England batsman Allan Lamb suggested on Sunday.
Lamb's comments came after the arrest of a 35-year-old man on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers following allegations in the News of the World that a number of Pakistan players were involved in cheating. The tabloid allegations centre on the timing of no-balls delivered during the match.
Undercover reporters from the paper allegedly paid a middleman 150,000 pounds and the newspaper claims in return they were told exact details relating to play during the following day.
Lamb, interviewed on BBC Radio Five Live, said: "If any player is caught, they've got to be life banned. "We've got to wait until the police investigation, who are the guilty parties, and the people caught have got to be banned for life. "Cricket has to go on, it can't just stop - we've got to get rid of the people involved, life ban them, and the game has to go on."
Lamb insisted the controversy does not diminish England's efforts in turning the game around from a position of peril at 102 for seven in their first innings. Centurions Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad combined for a world-record eighth-wicket stand of 332, and Lamb said: "The big thing is I don't think the no-balls affected the game, England have fairly and squarely got into the position to beat Pakistan.
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