Pakistan paceman Shabbir Ahmed has been officially cleared by the ICC to resume bowling in international cricket after serving a 12-month ban for an illegal action.
Shabbir was handed the one-year ban after his action was reported as being illegal in the West Indies and also against England.
However, after undergoing biomechanical tests after seeing out his ban, Pakistan have now been given the all-clear to field him again.
“We have today received an official letter from the International Cricket Council (ICC) informing us that Shabbir’s 12-month ban has been lifted,” PCB director of cricket operations Saleem Altaf said.
"We have worked hard to ensure that Shabbir’s action was cleared by the biomechanics expert Dr Bruce Elliot, who was appointed by the ICC.
“Elliot has sent his report to us and the ICC, in which he has confirmed that Shabbir’s remodelled action is within the official tolerance limits.”
Shabbir can now resume his Test career, in which he has taken 51 wickets in ten Tests, after working on his action in Australia.
“I have been out for a year and it is never easy getting back into the national team. I am working hard on maintaining my remodelled action,” he said.
“I want to forget this painful period for ever.” Shabbir will still be nervous once he returns to the Test arena, as his action could be reported again if he fails to get over his past problems.
Although I am with most when we say "lets move on" and give new people a chance but I still hope he recovers and still remains a force in the team. He used to be very threatening due to his height when bowling.
I think Pakistan got three good seamers in Asif, Gul and Shabir as far as control and seam movement is concern Pakistan got three good ODI medium pacer and alrounder in Razzaq, Rana and Azhar/Yasir Arafat. NOw they need to discover a new Shoaib with threatening pace and bring Sami confidence and accuracy up, and they also need to work on Samiullah Niazi and Khalil to polished up a left arm seamer.
The future of Pakistan cricket looks bright if they could work on an opening pair, prepare Faisal Iqbal more seriously to fill Inzi shoes at his retirement, and allow Zulqarnain Haider to gain some experience while Akmal is doing good, and it is only possible if from time to time PAK rest Akmal and allow Haider to play some international cricket.
Pakistan should use Shabir in SA and if he got reported (hope not, I wish him the best), then forget about him. Gul will be a better option if PAK need a forth seamer beside Shoaib, Asif and Rana. Of course Razzaq is there too.
I think its totally wrong to compare Shabbir with Sami. Infact, its an insult to Shabbir to compare him with Sami. Shabbir has taken 51 wickets in 10 test matches at an average of 23. That is a very impressive record. Now whether he chucks or not, is a different story. Lets see how he does with his modified(hopefully) action. He has been doing well in domestic cricket since his comeback, so seems like a good sign for Pakistan.
Yaar... we have to stop using pakistan's domestic circuit as a yardstick to measure a player's game. It has proven time and again to give an extremely inaccurate picture of any given player.
^ it true that we should not judge players by our domestic scene, but you can atleast at 'relative' performance of both Shabbir and Sami, both are bowling in same domestic scene :)
Especially since its probably taken something of that degree of severity to reshape his arm