Spot the ringer: What happened when banned Mohammad Aamer turned up to play in Surrey

By Lawrence Booth for the Daily Mail
Updated: 02:12 EST, 9 June 2011

Saturday morning in the unassuming London suburb of New Malden was supposed to be another quiet game of cricket for Surrey League side St Lukes CC. Then one of the players spotted someone familiar.

Not everyone was convinced at first, but a quick glance at YouTube on an iPhone confirmed the suspicion. Lining up for Addington 1743 was none other than Mohammad Aamer, the gifted 19-year-old Pakistani fast bowler who last summer stole hearts and wickets in equal measure, then plunged from grace during the spot-fixing scandal at Lord’s.

Aamer, fellow quick Mohammad Asif and captain Salman Butt are due to face trial accused of arranging a total of three deliberate no-balls in return for cash, and have been banned by the ICC from all cricket for five years.

Yet here was one of them - a man who would otherwise have been named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year - walking out to open the batting at the London School of Economics sports ground in south west London, only 15 miles from the scene of his demise in St John’s Wood.

‘I wouldn’t know him from a bar of soap,’ Karl Quinn, the St Lukes captain and opening batsman, told Sportsmail. ‘But one of our guys said, “Is that who I think it is?” So I checked him out on YouTube and, sure enough, it was one of the three Pakistani blokes who was done at Lord’s.’

Addington batted first, with Aamer clumping a quick 60 at the top of the order in an imposing total of 251 in 45 overs. But it was when he bowled that the damage was really done.

Quinn, 37, said: ‘A few of us started joking that he’d be coming at us at 90mph and we’d better get all the armour on, but I just padded up as normal and headed for the middle.’

Last summer, Aamer proved too good for some of the world’s best batsmen, taking 11 wickets at 22 each at Lord’s and Headingley against Australia, then 19 at 18 apiece against England.

Now, finding himself on an open field 10 minutes’ walk from Berrylands train station, and with the university’s football-pitch markings still visible from the winter, he was pacing out his run-up against a team of decent but limited club cricketers.

As Quinn watched from one end, Aamer wrought havoc at the other, bowling two men for ducks - one with a middle-stump yorker - then trapping a third lbw for a single, before returning to remove one more for just four. He finished with figures of 7-4-9-4 - and without a no-ball in sight.

‘I made all nine of the runs he conceded,’ said Quinn, a New Zealander who has lived in the UK for a decade and delivers bottled water to restaurants and hotels. ‘An edge for four, and, well, a few other edges too.

‘He was bowling off a shortened run, but he was still a lot quicker than anything I’d faced before - about 75-80mph, I’d say, which is even quicker than our bowling machine. And he was swinging it. I hear Ricky Ponting wasn’t too chuffed to be facing him.

‘I did block a few to get my eye in, but a couple went past me at high speed. I’ m only 5ft 6in, so no Freddie Flintoff, but there was one up around my chin. He didn’t say much, but his team-mates were going, “Now’s your chance against an international bowler…”

‘A few of our guys wondered what he was doing in the Surrey League, but we were told by their captain they had got the league’s permission. It would have been like playing back home and seeing New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum taking guard.’

The club’s shock at seeing a Test bowler in the opposition ranks was matched in Croydon, where Addington 1743 are based at a more rudimentary venue than the one served up by the LSE.

Addington are said to have been one of the strongest clubs in England in the mid-18th century, but one source involved with them told Sportsmail: ‘This has put our name into disrepute. It’s a black day for Addington. Some of the members are getting very uptight about the fact a banned cricketer turned out for us.’

For Quinn and his team-mates, though, the novelty of facing a bowler who not so long ago was tormenting Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen has over-ridden any outrage.

‘There was a game on a neighbouring pitch where one of the teams was bowled out for 50-odd, so maybe he should have been playing for them,’ Quinn said. ‘But it’s not every day you turn up for a match on a Saturday and find yourself face to face with a Test cricketer.’