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| September 22, 2006 | Friday | Sha'aban 28, 1427 |
Zaheer advised not to appear in Inzamam hearing: Kaneria, Umar Gul also not required
KARACHI, Sept 21: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Thursday confirmed that Zaheer Abbas, the manager on recent tour of England, will not be attending next week’s ICC disciplinary hearing on the advice of their lawyers.
Abbas Zaidi, PCB’s director board operations, told Dawn from Islamabad that Zaheer, who was originally scheduled to be one of the witnesses at the Sept 27-28 hearing in London, has now being told to stay home along with leg-spinner Danish Kaneria and fast bowler Umar Gul.
“Since we are bound to act on the advice of our lawyers whom we have engaged to plead Inzamam-ul-Haq’s case, we have now been informed that Zaheer, Kaneria and Umar are not required to attend the hearing in person,” Zaidi said.
“In fact, the lawyers have now sought written statements of these three individuals. Now apart from Inzamam, the PCB chairman and coach Bob Woolmer will be present when the hearing begins next week,” he added.
Inzamam has been charged with changing the condition of the ball (Level 2 offence) and bringing the game into disrepute (Level 3 offence).
The Pakistan skipper is likely to be fined between 50 to 100 per cent of his match fee or will get a ban of one Test or two-ODIs under first charge while a ban of two to four Tests or four to eight One-day Internationals can be imposed on the other charge.
Just 10 days ago, Zaheer was replaced as manager by Talat Ali for next month’s ICC Champions Trophy in India since the PCB felt that the former captain would be preoccupied with the Inzamam case.
“Since Zaheer would be required to attend the two-day ICC disciplinary hearing on Sept 27-28 in London as one of the witnesses, it has been decided not to entrust him with the responsibility for now,” the PCB chief had said at a press conference in Karachi.
“I wouldn't say there is any indictment on the capability or ability of Zaheer Abbas as team manager. But we have decided to move him away from this responsibility because he is one of our witnesses at the ICC hearing and we wouldn’t like to put any extra pressure on him.”
Zaheer’s removal has been generally described as a ‘face-saving’ strategy on PCB’s part after the former manager had failed to act on that fateful fourth evening of The Oval Test on Aug 20 when Pakistan became the first side ever in history to forfeit a Test while registering their protest at the ball-tampering allegations made by umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove.
Zaheer then was seen doing little more than chatting away merrily on his cell phone, walking in and out of an emotion-filled meeting inside the Pakistan dressing-room though the situation demanded a strong, sensible approach from him.
Interestingly, the PCB chairman in his press conference, failed to mention that coach Bob Woolmer also had been asked to appear at the hearing.
“Probably, he (the PCB chairman) forgot to mention Woolmer’s name while briefing the media last week,” Zaidi conceded.
When asked whether Pakistan would resist any move by the ICC to nominate the controversial umpire Hair in their matches in the Champions Trophy, Zaidi refrained from making a comment.
“We have already informed the ICC of our stance on this issue,” he reiterated. “We are not going to say anything now which could weaken Inzamam’s case.”
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