Allegations 'devalue' series - Flower

Andy Flower, the England coach, has expressed his frustration and sadness at the latest spot-fixing allegations to emerge from Pakistan's tour, admitting that the whole series continues to be devalued by the controversy.

Further revelations emerged in Saturday's Sun newspaper involving the third one-day international at The Oval, which Pakistan won by 23 runs, and there was enough evidence for ICC to launch an immediate investigation into suspicious run-scoring patterns during the match. The ECB called an emergency board meeting and received assurances that no England player or official was under the spotlight and, for now, the tour continues for the final two ODIs.

The series was already shrouded in controversy following the initial stories three weeks ago surrounding Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif and the latest allegations will only add to the uneasy feeling around the matches at Lord's on Monday and the Rose Bowl on Wednesday.

"It's really sad for the game," Flower said. "From a selfish perspective it's really annoying because it devalues our Test series and it's also devaluing this one-day series. But looking at it from the game's point of view, which is what we should all do, it's very sad for cricket and the only thing I do hope is that they are able to get to the bottom of some of this stuff."

During The Oval one-dayer, Pakistan made 241 batting first before Umar Gul's reverse swing sparked a dramatic fightback from the visitors as England subsided to 218 all out. Watching the action, it didn't even cross Flower's mind that something might be amiss. "Well, probably naively, I didn't even contemplate that anything would be going on yesterday," he said. "We were concentrating on doing our job as well as we can so that didn't enter my mind, no."

Flower admitted relations between the two teams are becoming stretched after the string of allegations that have come out since the fourth day of the Lord's Test last month when the News of the World broke the spot-fixing story regarding no-balls allegedly delivered on demand by Amir and Asif. "I don't really want to go into detail on that but of course things like this will affect relationship between the side, in general terms," Flower said.

Although the three players at the centre of the allegations - Butt and the two fast bowlers - were withdrawn from the series and later suspended by ICC before returning to Pakistan the current squad still includes Wahab Riaz, the left arm quick, who was questioned by police last week in connection with the investigation.

However, speaking before the ECB's confirmation that the final two ODIs would proceed as planned Flower added that England's sole focus was securing the victory at Lord's on Monday they need to take the series. "We want to go to Lord's and win the game so that we win the series and that is as simple as we'll keep it.

"There is only one way that we should be approaching it and that is focusing on doing our job as well as we can because there is little good to be gained from us doing anything else," he said. "That's the stance we've taken.

"Yes we've discussed it as a team. There are all sorts of distractions that are thrown your way when you play and for us the healthiest place to be is viewing it as a distraction that should not detract from our focus on our side."