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| October 23, 2003 | Thursday | Sha’aban 26, 1424 |
Shoaib’s appeal rejected
LAHORE, Oct 22: International Cricket Council (ICC) appointed Appeals Commissioner, Richie Benaud, has rejected controversial paceman Shoaib Akhtar’s appeal against one Test and two ODIs ban imposed by the Match Referee Clive Lloyd, a PCB spokesman announced on Wednesday.
Lloyd slapped the ban after South Africa team management lodged a complaint that Shoaib used abusive language against Paul Adams in the visitors first innings of the first Test at Lahore.
The Pakistan team manager had filed an appeal against Lloyd’s decision to ICC praying the decision was harsh considering many other incidents of more severe nature in the series had gone unnoticed. ICC had appointed Benaud to take a final decision.
“My view is that the sentence imposed by Lloyd is correct and, accordingly, the appeal is dismissed,” Benaud said.
“I decided that as the appeal relates to the sentence only and not to the actual offence, that I would work on the papers available to me, rather than ask for the video of the incident,” he added.
He also noted the fact that Shoaib had accepted the verdict and said he was guilty.
Meanwhile, the chief executive PCB Ramiz Raja said: “We appealed against the decision but now that the Appeal’s Commissioner has given his verdict, we accept the same.”
Former Pakistan skipper Imran Khan said to dispense justice to Shoaib it would now be the responsibility of the field umpires to ensure that no one involved in such unpleasant incidents was spared from punitive action.
Imran claimed that Pakistan would suffer due to Shoaib’s absence in the Faisalabad Test starting on Friday.
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