LONDON, Sept 2: The three Pakistan cricketers at the centre of spot-fixing allegations were dropped for the rest of the team's England tour on Thursday, shortly before they appeared for questioning by investigators of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

Team manager Yawar Saeed said Test captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir will not play in the two Twenty20 Internationals and five One-day Internationals. He insisted they had not been suspended.

Yawar said that 13 players will be available for the Twenty20 matches before three replacements arrive to bolster the squad for the ODI series.

“The T20 squad will remain what it is here this morning, i.e. 13 people,” Yawar said in Taunton, where Pakistan were playing a warm-up game against English county side Somerset. “When we play the ODIs, we will be asking for replacements to make the squad up to 16.”

Yawar, who had earlier said the trio would continue playing unless police laid criminal charges against them, did not say who the replacements would be.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), meanwhile, welcomed the decision by Pakistan not to include the three players in their limited-overs squads.

“We can assure cricket fans across the country that the matches will be played in the most competitive spirit long associated with contests between England and Pakistan,” EBC Chairman Giles Clarke said.

Asif, Aamir and Salman were at the Pakistan High Commission in London on Thursday for questioning by a PCB investigation.

Salman, Asif and Aamir had to be given a police escort as they entered the building in Knightsbridge. About 10 police officers guided the trio into the building amid a throng of reporters and TV crews.

All three refused to answer questions after arriving in a car with blacked out windows. News of the World

British newspaper the alleged on Sunday that Aamir and Asif were paid to deliberately bowl no-balls in the opening day of the fourth test against England at Lord's last week. Salman and wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal were also implicated in the story.

Asif, Aamir and Salman had their mobile phones confiscated by police, who also searched hotel rooms and questioned players on Saturday as part of an investigation also involving the International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit.

Shahid Afridi is leading the Pakistan team in their limited-overs matches, starting with a game against Somerset.

“Obviously, if they have done something bad, you need to give them a punishment,” Afridi said. “But I think we are still waiting for the results.

“It will be a really tough series and I think everyone is trying to focus on the cricket now. We are ready to play some good cricket.”

The spot-fixing allegations are the latest blow to cricket in Pakistan, which has not hosted any international matches since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team and match officials in March 2009.

Clarke, who is also chairman of the ICC's Pakistan Task Team, said he hoped the incident did not slow Pakistan's reintegration into world cricket.

“I look forward to working with Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, Ijaz Butt, the chairman of the PCB, and everybody involved in Pakistan cricket in taking forward cricket in Pakistan so that a plan exists for the whole of Pakistan cricket, given all the many and varied issues which it's up against,” Clarke added.

Clarke said last month that plans were being made for an ICC World XI to play a match in Pakistan.—AP