We have got to start getting hard evidence and make it stick to cut the cancer of corruption from cricket. Anyone we find who has hurt the game must be made an example of, and banned for life. Should there be some leniency for a young player? – I’m not sure – but there is no doubt that senior players must be involved and that there is tremendous pressure on the youngsters.

After Hansie Cronje, Lord Condon and the Anti-Corruption unit I thought cricket had done a good job – cleaning up the game – banning mobile phones from dressing rooms. But modern cricketers are very well off – they have more than one mobile – when I was in Sri Lanka a few years ago with Darren Gough he had four! When my daughter was at boarding school they had to hand their phone in at bed time – but at 14 they were bright enough to hand in an old one, often without the SIM card, and keep the real one for texting under the bed covers! They were pretty switched on at that age!

I had hoped that match fixing was behind us but these allegations are not just about defrauding bookmakers over spot betting, but include a statement by Mazhar Majeed to the News of the World that it was already agreed to lose two of the upcoming One Day Internationals between England and Pakistan.

Getting the evidence has always been the problem – now we have tapes and video – images of money being counted – all very worrying. But we have the right people on the case – the Metropolitan police – they will not be sweeping evidence under the carpet.
I have good friends in Pakistan – I didn’t just play there, I commentated on television. I like the Pakistani people and like many in cricket we want to help them. They’ve had the problems with terrorism and they are now devastated by enormous floods. We have a warmth towards them but no one will go and play there because of these problems. We in England have hosted their “home” Test matches. Look at Yorkshire – we have lost money hosting Pakistan v Australia at Headingley and now this.

For now they are only allegations, but when Mazhar Majeed said what would happen re no balls, and it did happen, it doesn’t look good. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

If the Pakistan Cricket Board had sorted it out years ago, when match fixing first reared its ugly head, then their team, and cricket, would not be in such a mess now.

The problem with the PCB is when a player is suspended, or banned, some weeks later it is overturned and the player is back playing again. The players know this so suspensions and bans are worthless.
Every mother knows for their child to get the message and understand the rules of the house, if she says something and the child disobeys, then she must carry out the punishment. Too often that does not happen in Pakistani cricket. So this time, the ICC and the PCB have to stop sitting on the fence and follow through with their own lengthy punishments.

The crowds were so poor at Nottingham and Birmingham I’ll be surprised if they haven’t lost money.

With nine grounds queuing up for Test matches it’s brainless to have back to back matches in the same areas – spread them around all parts of the country!

These Test matches follow six weeks of cricket lovers having to pay out loads for constant 20/20. They’ve no money left – they’re voting with their pockets. This could be the start of an era of falling attendances. Six weeks of 20/20 was always a stupid idea – there is not enough money around. Play them every Friday night throughout the season, alternating home and away – one match a fortnight. Spread the cost for the spectators.

These schedulers at the ECB need their heads testing!

Pakistan’s use of it has been as bad as their catching! They have made mistakes and wasted their calls. The review system is there to make right glaring wrongs and mistakes, not for fine line decisions. It’s a judgement call. Pakistan have to learn that when making the judgement to review or not they do not let their emotions run away with themselves. Just because you want a player to be out doesn’t mean he is. It is a cold and calculating decision and emotions should not be allowed to run wild.

In the first two Tests Pakistan have made bad calls, losing confidence in their own judgement. Twice in the last match they didn’t review, and the decision would have gone their way. They are too excitable – they must put their emotions to one side and use the system wisely.

With all change there are people for and against. The players have quickly accepted the use of Hawkeye and Hotspot and there has been no complaining. It’s the same as when Hawkeye was introduced to tennis – it is now accepted as part of the game – no McEnroe outbursts!

The review system is quite dramatic and adds to the excitement of the game. It is there to help the umpire get the right decisions – to help the game, and it will soon be part of the furniture. Most umpiring decisions are right. It’s a very difficult job, but an umpire is kidding himself if he thinks he can get all his decisions right. The review system is there to help get more decisions right.

I’d like to see the system spread to all forms of cricket but finance will be a big problem.

If the ball moves around then they have three bowlers — Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamer and Umar Gul — who can cause us problems. But the one thing you know about England’s batsmen is that they will fight and scrap better than the Pakistanis did at Nottingham.

The England batters may not always be pleasing on the eye or have perfect techniques, but they are good, solid performers in Test cricket.

We know that Alastair Cook gets stuck on the crease and has technical problems with his footwork. We know that the captain, Andrew Strauss, is liable to have a nibble outside off stump and that Paul Collingwood is a bottom-hand player who sometimes looks ugly as he works the ball to the onside.

There are no problems with the young Irishman, Eoin Morgan. He is starting his career and is hungry for success, but what we need is Kevin Pietersen to return to form.

Even though he is struggling for runs, England are nowhere near dropping him. There is talk about it in some quarters but there is no way they would do that.

There is, though, some concern about whether he is focused enough on the international game and not other things going on in his life.

Eventually he will have to make substantial runs and not play little cameos.

Until he does that, there will be murmurings that he has not produced a big innings for a year and a half. It has been that long because I don’t count anything that happened against Bangladesh or in Twenty20 cricket.

There is nothing wrong with his batting technique. It is about what is going on between his ears. Too often he is trying to hit balls he should be defending.

He should give himself more time at the crease before he starts being expansive. It is about shot selection. Picking the right stroke for the right ball and accepting sometimes bowlers bowl well at you and you have to defend more than you attack.

But despite the weaknesses of the England batsmen, they have got good Test records and, anyhow, even if they nick it you can’t be sure the Pakistani fielders are going to catch the ball.

Look at the wicketkeeper, Kamran Akmal. He caught a blinder off the inside edge off Pietersen in the second innings at Nottingham but then he dropped a couple of sitters and missed a stumping against Collingwood when he had so much time that he could have run him out, let alone stump him. That seems to have cost him his place.

On top of that, we know for sure that if it swings and seams, our bowlers will bowl out Pakistan because their batsmen are very naïve and inexperienced in our conditions.

Even bringing back Mohammad Yousuf isn’t going to make the difference between winning and losing. He arrived yesterday afternoon and he hasn’t had time for an outdoor net. That is how ludicrous this situation is. Their cricket organisation is shambolic. You feel for the kids because they are so young and talented.

But even if the pitch is good and flat and their batsmen score runs I still believe that England are more professional, disciplined and battlehardened than their youngsters.

It should be men against boys. It is a shame because we would all like to see Pakistan do well. They deserve a bit of luck after not being allowed to play Test cricket in their own country. But I don’t see any way out for them on this trip.

This mismatch is the reason why we have to be careful of reading too much into England’s performances and tactics and get carried away about the winter.

On a tactical front, England are always going to pick six batsmen because they don’t make enough runs in the first innings to pick only five. They make too many mistakes and get themselves out. Five bowlers would be helpful but you have got to have dependable batsmen who make big scores and we don’t have that.

As far as James Anderson is concerned, it is true that he is a mercurial and brilliant bowler in these swinging and seaming conditions. But in Australia four years ago he played three Test matches, took five wickets and they cost him 82 runs each. That doesn’t win Test matches.

Although he is a little older and wiser, the Kookaburra ball will not swing like the Duke does here.

I don’t care how mature and experienced he is, just bear in mind Test matches against Pakistan have no resemblance to Test matches in Australia.

He was reported in newspapers as saying: “I was watching TV last night when I saw him (Me) commenting that Bangladesh should not be playing Test cricket. I felt very bad and could not sleep until 1 am. It made me determined to do something to show him on the field. We are a developing team and we really deserve some support from a person like Mr Boycott”.

Apparently my view that they are not a Test team motivated him to score a fantastic hundred. Well, if I can do that with one quote on TV perhaps they should hire me to be the motivational coach – I could do with the money.

I met the lad on Monday morning and there’s no doubt he’s superstar material. He’s 21 years old, good looking and he’s got an exceptional talent. But he needs to harness it. On the plus side he’s got ‘quick eyes’ and Viv Richards and Brian Lara had the same gift which allows a batsman to pick up the length of the ball much quicker than ordinary mortals. He’s got super timing, quick feet, fast hand-eye co-ordination and lots of shots. He pulls well, keeping the ball down, drives superbly and is just a naturally gifted stroke player. The problem is he gets so excited with it all that he suddenly has a wild ‘yahoo’ occasionally at a good length ball and that sort of thing will get him out.

Without changing his game he needs to realise that part of batting is being selective in the shots you play. Occasionally bowlers produce a ball which you must defend and to give the lad credit he told the viewers he wanted ‘to learn from Mr Boycott he was the best at defence’.

After talking to him I was asked if I had changed my view on Bangladesh’s Test status and quite simply the answer is ‘no’.

Cricket is about batting AND bowling and while the batting is quite good with Kayes, Siddique, Islam and Mahmudullah they can’t bowl for toffee. At Lord’s, particularly in the second innings when England scored 160 in a session, they weren’t even Minor County standard and I’ve seen better bowling in a benefit match. If you can’t take 20 wickets in a match how are you ever going to win? The batting gave us all a lot of pleasure but that woeful bowling inevitably brought a 58th defeat in their 67th Test.

I stand by what I said when I gave the Cowdrey lecture back in 2005. ‘These are smashing people, there is some talent there and they deserve better. It destroys morale and talent to keep getting hammered. It ruins confidence and holds back their advancement and I believe they should be playing against sides of equal or slightly better ability. It’s the stick and the carrot. Too much stick is no good for anybody and there has to be a chance of some success or what point is there in playing.

‘I honestly believe that the ICC should be ashamed of itself for allowing this devaluation of Test cricket to continue. Doing nothing is the politician’s way and it’s totally unacceptable. To look at it positively, the ICC could arrange overseas tours to play the state sides in Australia, provinces in South Africa, the islands in the West Indies, the states in India and the counties over here. In that way they would be able to grow, become accustomed to conditions overseas, learn from others and have a chance of winning a couple of games which would do wonders for them and put a stop to this meaningless cricket’.

Nothing has happened since to change my point of view.

Listen to his comments on the BBC Sport website