Amir only allowed to bowl offspin

Following criticism of Mohammad Amir's early return to cricket after his spot-fixing ban, the ICC today announced the left-arm quick would only be allowed to bowl right-arm offspin in a long-sleeved top so "no one can ever forget he's a bit shifty".

There had been fears letting Amir back ahead of schedule sent a message his past behaviour was completely forgiven, but this latest sanction, the ICC believes, will ensure the Pakistani youngster will continue to be widely stigmatised because, in the words of one Dubai official, "everyone knows what these offspinners get up to".

Speaking outside the Indian Supreme Court, Head of the ICC Ethics Enforcement Unit, N Srinivasan, explained the idea: ''A lot of people were a bit miffed at us letting Amir come back early, so we decided to add an extra punishment to guarantee no one will ever, ever consider him above suspicion. We couldn't think of anything more likely to ruin his reputation in the current climate than forcing him to play as an offspinner.

"Well, we were toying with the idea of making him India's overseas bowling coach, but in the end we decided even a convicted felon didn't deserve that." The deputy head of the ICC Ethics Enforcement Unit, N Srinivasan, claimed that this was in no way another clever ruse from the Big Three to prevent other countries from having any decent bowlers whatsoever: ''We haven't insisted Wayne Parnell becomes an offspinner, have we?'' he argued convincingly.

Amir himself was understandably upset about the plan, taking to social media to suggest the shame of being imprisoned for spot-fixing was nothing compared to the disgrace of having to bowl offspin in 2015. After listing his profile location as "a small village", the fallen idol sent out a number of distraught tweets claiming he "couldn't stand all the whispering and finger-pointing'' to which he'd be subjected if he was forced to send down the same category of delivery as Mohammad Hafeez and Saeed Ajmal. Later he wrote: "It's one thing to be hated for deliberately conceding a no-ball and shattering the dreams of millions of cricket fans across the world. It's quite another to suffer the humiliation of having a portly man in an ill-fitting umpire's uniform declare your arm is a bit too bendy." New to Twitter, Amir eventually realised the message wouldn't be published because he had overstepped the character limit, so he posted it on Facebook instead.

Although the plan was welcomed by the paceman's critics, it was condemned by charities working to rehabilitate recovering offspinners. Ann Ghells, head of the support group Give Hate the Elbow, expressed concern this latest enforced stigmatisation of Amir would only breed even greater prejudice: "We have worked tirelessly to straighten out those considered on the edge of acceptable cricketing society, such as Sunil Narine and Sachithra Senanayake," she said. "By turning Amir from a left-arm quick into an offspinner, we strongly suspect the ICC is only asking the poor lad to completely remodel his action in order to then call him for chucking and require him to again completely remodel his action. Nobody should be subjected to this sort of inhumane treatment. Well, actually, maybe Sreesanth."