Controverisal ad terming Pakistan players match-fixers removed

The Moa Brewing Co. had launched the ad campaign, featuring Tuffey, where he claims that Pakistani players are match fixers and while New Zealand win matches, the Pakistanis take home cash cheques.

The ad drew strong criticism from the Pakistani community in New Zealand with Dunedin-based former Test player and coach Khalid Ibadullah terming the campaign as "quite insulting and quite offensive".

Ibadullah also drew the attention of the Pakistan Cricket Board to the campaign, which reacted very strongly to it and decided to look into the matter.

A PCB spokesman said that the ad has been withdrawn now after the matter was taken up with the company.

The company had earlier defended the commercial pointing out that Pakistan cricket has been hit hard by match fixing allegations and that three of its top players -- Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Aamir -- were in fact banned by the ICC for spot-fixing last year.

The PCB official had said while it was true that the three players were banned for spot-fixing but that didn't give the company the right to cast slurs on Pakistan cricket.