Re: Asif and Shoaib case, what happens next ?
Case not closed on Akhtar, Asif: WADA
World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound says the door is not yet closed on the cases of Pakistan cricketers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif after their long-term bans were lifted.
Pound said the International Cricket Council (ICC) must now consider whether it agrees with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) appointed appeal tribunal's finding which cleared the two Test pace bowlers over positive tests for the steroid nandrolone.
And WADA could take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) if the ICC decides to do nothing and WADA disagrees, he added.
Shoaib was banned for two years and Asif for one year over the tests taken before the recent Champions Trophy but they were exonerated under a law on exceptional circumstances in the PCB's anti-doping rules.
The three-man appeal tribunal gave a 2-1 decision in their favour, ruling that they had not had sufficient warning the supplements they were taking could be contaminated by the steroid.
PCB chairman Nasim Ashraf was confident that was the end of the matter, saying: "I categorically say the chapter is closed. We followed a legal procedure and honour and respect the decision by the committee.
He added: "Since the tests were conducted out of a competition, any reservations from the ICC or WADA will not affect players. Why be afraid of the ICC or WADA when we have followed the legal procedure?".
However Pound said Ashraf could only speak for the PCB.
"He's advocating for the process in Pakistan but it certainly is not a closed door at this point," Pound told Sydney radio station 2KY.
"I think he's probably and quite properly speaking as far as Pakistan is concerned ... now the ICC may have a different view and that's something that he can't control."
Pound said not knowing steroids could be in a supplement would not be an acceptable excuse to WADA.
"No, the whole system of anti-doping is based upon the concept of strict liability, that you are responsible for what's in your system," said Pound.
"And it doesn't matter if you were taking some food supplement, if that in fact was what the source was. You are responsible for the fact that you had seven times more nandrolone in your system than the threshold for positive test."
Pound said WADA had yet to study the tribunal's finding and the next step was for the ICC to consider it.
"We'll say to the ICC `look this is your sport, this is your national federation, take a look at the rules and if they haven't applied them properly then really it's your responsibility to act. We only act if you're unwilling to assume your own responsibilities'."
The Pakistan tribunal chairman, Justice Fakhruddin G Ebrahim said the committee found it was "clearly, plainly evident that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were ever warned or cautioned against taking supplements."
Asif was only told to discontinue taking the supplements when he himself told team physio Darryn Lifson about them in August 2006, he said.
It was the committee's "considered view that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have successfully established that they had an honest and reasonable belief that the supplements ingested by them did not contain any prohibited substances".
Cricket Australia spokesperson Peter Young said it would not be commenting on the matter.
"We don't really want to make any comment. We have an anti-doping policy which is WADA compliant so we operate on that basis and with an objective of having a zero-tolerance approach to drugs in sport.
"What other countries do within their own administration is a matter for them and I don't think we'll be commenting about their internal affairs and how another country operates its cricket."
The ICC was equally tight-lipped at this stage.
"We haven't seen the judgment and the reasons behind it, so at this stage we won't be able to make any comment," a spokesman said from its Dubai headquarters.
Neither bowlers is to be immediately recalled for the ongoing one-day series against West Indies.