KARACHI: After Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq and all-rounder Shahid Afridi, off-spinner Saeed Ajmal has also called for a lifetime ban on cricketers found guilty of spot-fixing.

Talking to a private TV channel, he said it had taken a lot of effort on the part of the players and management to improve the image of Pakistan cricket worldwide, following the 2010 spot-fixing scandal.

“The team was subjected to cat-calls of ‘fixers’ for around three years after the spot-fixing scandal marred Pakistan tour to England in 2010,” Ajmal recalled.

“The team worked really hard to shake off that incident,” he said, lamenting that the latest PSL spot-fixing scandal had wasted the hard work.

Sharjeel Khan, Khalid Latif, Shahzaib Hasan, Mohammad Irfan and former opener Nasir Jamshed have been charged and provisionally suspended from all forms of cricket by the Pakistan Cricket Board for alleged involvement in corruption scandal during the recently-concluded PSL 2017.

Ajmal was banned from bowling in international matches owing to his “illegal action” in 2014. He returned after working on his action but failed to make an impact when given the chance against Bangladesh and remains sidelined as a result.