Hameed apologises for NOTW sting

Yasir Hameed has apologised in front of the PCB over his conversation with an undercover reporter in September during a sting operation conducted by News of the World, where he was recorded talking about the three players - Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir - suspected of being involved in spot-fixing. Hameed, who hasn't been part of the national team since that tour of England, appeared before the PCB's integrity committee on Friday morning.

"I was trapped into it but I should not have said all that before a stranger and I apologise to all the players who were hurt because of that," Hameed told AFP. During the course of the video, Hameed discussed the fall-out of the spot-fixing controversy, the Sydney Test and Hameed's claim that a bookie approached him during the 2004 Champions Trophy in England.

Hameed, who claimed the man he was speaking to in the video had posed as a representative of a global airline trying to discuss a sponsorship deal, had denied speaking to NOTW and said he was merely repeating information from the original reports in the same newspaper when the story on the controversy broke.

In his statement, Hameed said that after discussing sponsorship deals, the man he knew by the name of Abid Khan, offered him a sum of £25,000 to give a statement against his three team-mates who found themselves at the centre of the controversy to which Hameed said, he, "immediately refused and put the phone down. I was neither called nor answered any calls from Abid after this conversation."

The integrity committee also met with Danish Kaneria, Shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal on Friday. The players submitted further documents detailing financial and property records and were spoken to individually by members of the committee.

The committee is considering whether or not to clear the players for future selection for Pakistan assignments. There was speculation that a decision had been reached on their future but no public or private announcement was made by the board. Instead, it is expected the answer will emerge once the selection committee names a 15-man squad for the ODI series with New Zealand on Friday.