In an interview with Sky Sports, former England skipper Michael Atherton has said that tainted Pakistani pacer Mohammad Amir deserves a second chance.

Amir along with former captain Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif was banned from cricket for throwing deliberate no-balls during a Test match against England at Lord’s in 2010 – before being later jailed in Britain.

After making a return to the limited-overs cricket earlier this year, the left-arm pacer is in contention to make his much-anticipated Test return, and, should he be selected for the first Test at Lord’s which starts from July `14, his comeback game would be at the venue the infamous fixing incident took place.

Many feel that the five-year ban was not enough and Amir should have received a harsher punishment but Atherton said that being out of the game for five years is severe enough.

“First of all, he made a bad mistake and he deserved some punishment, there is no getting away from that,” Atherton told Sky Sports.

“Five years out of the game and going to jail is a pretty heavy punishment – I think it was a six-month sentence of which he served three.

“But I do think there were some mitigating factors and that’s why I’ve had some sympathy for him and why I believe he deserves a second chance.”

Giving explanations, Atherton said that a life ban would have been “unbelievably harsh” for the 24-year old.

“The first circumstance is the nature of the sting,” he said. “It’s important to understand that this was not a betting scam, there could be no bets made.

“This was a sting set up to show that players were corruptible. It is perfectly fair to argue, I think, that the newspaper was creating a crime and enticing people into crime, although the justification was that the journalist had been given a tip-off.

“They turned to the youngest and most vulnerable player in that team and put him under pressure to bowl those no-balls. So, I think on those two mitigating factors a ban for life would be unbelievably harsh. A five-year ban – that’s fine.”