England captain Andrew Strauss said Friday the corruption scandal which saw three Pakistan players jailed would not affect the two teams' upcoming Test and One-day series. England will face Pakistan in the Gulf in January, the first meeting of the two teams since the graft-tainted 2010 series which led to corruption charges against Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer.
All three Pakistani players were handed custodial sentences on Thursday after being convicted of involvement in a "spot-fixing" scam following a dramatic five-week trial in London. However, Strauss is hopeful the scandal will not affect his view of future matches against Pakistan.
"No, look, you play against 11 other cricketers and one of the strong traits we try to foster within the England team is you worry about yourself and your own performance," Strauss said at a charity function. "That's what we'll be doing in Dubai and it'll be another keenly contested series, as it always is against Pakistan, and what's gone on is water under the bridge."
Strauss, however, was critical of the role of the International Cricket Council in the affair, believing the game's global governing body could be doing more to root out corruption in the sport. "For me, there's still a lot of questions to be answered because they weren't exposed by any of the cricketing members, they were exposed by the News of the World," Strauss said.
"I still think the ICC could be doing a lot more than they are doing. Unfortunately, the anti-corruption unit is a pretty toothless tiger. They can't get into the real depth of it all because they haven't got the resources available to them. "I don't hold it against them, they're doing the best job they possibly can. "They can't do sting operations like the News of the World, they can't infiltrate these betting networks. They've tried their best."
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