**Three-man appellate tribunal arrives at verdict **
Shoaib’s five-year ban upheld
Shoaib Akhtar’s appeal against a five-year ban imposed on him by the Pakistan board has been rejected by an appellate tribunal, which has temporarily upheld his punishment in Lahore. Justice (retd) Aftab Farrukh, the head of the three-man tribunal, said the main hearing into Akthar’s appeal against the ban would take place in June and that the ban on playing in or for Pakistan would stay in place until then.
“We have seen Shoaib’s track record and believe that he has not learnt any lesson. He flouted discipline of the board, he harmed the chairman of the board and fellow cricketers and above all sentiments of the nation,” Farrukh said.
While the PCB clarified that Shoaib is free to play in the Indian Premier League, an IPL spokesperson told Cricinfo that their position of not allowing him to take part in the tournament “remains the same” as of now. The IPL had decided to bar Shoaib from the tournament in “the interests of international discipline” after the PCB’s decision. Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Kolkata Knight Riders, the team that bought Shoaib for US$425,000, said they will abide by the IPL stand.
With both international cricket and the IPL ruled out, one option for Shoaib would have been the Indian Cricket League. The unofficial league does not fall under the Indian board - and has an all- Pakistan team in its Twenty20 tournament. However, its business head, Himanshu Mody, confirmed to Cricinfo that the ICL was not in talks with Shoaib.
The tribunal’s decision comes just a day after Shoaib apologised to the PCB chairman, Nasim Ashraf, in the second of three hearings.
On April 1 the board banned Shoaib from playing cricket, for and in Pakistan, for violating the players’ code of conduct. Shoaib filed an appeal against the ban and lashed out at the PCB saying he was being “victimised”.
Shoaib was already on two years’ probation for hitting Mohammad Asif with a bat before the start of the World Twenty20 in South Africa in 2007. That offence saw him fined 3.4 million rupees ($52,000 dollars) and banned for 13 matches.
© Cricinfo
