September 05, 2007	Wednesday	Sha'aban 22, 1428

LAHORE, Sept 4: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has not released opening batsman Imran Farhat from its central contract, board’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Shafqat Naghmi told reporters on Tuesday.

“Even though Imran had requested for his exclusion from the central contract, the board still considers him on the contractual list which is why the opener was served a legal notice for levelling allegations on some of the PCB officials and the national selection committee,” clarified Naghmi.

“We had received a request for release from Imran so we decided to start the proceedings according to the policy which may include a legal notice,” he said. The PCB, according to Naghmi, has the right to take action against any player for violating any clause in the central contract.

While admitting that all the centrally contracted players had first signed a one-page agreement and the full contract was given to them on Aug 13, Naghmi said: “Signing on any page binds you to the contract and so Imran should follow the rules.”

Meanwhile, Naghmi who visited Australia along with National Cricket Academy (NCA) Director Mudassar Nazar and Ali Zia to negotiate on purchasing a biomechanics lab for the academy, said the PCB would first have to hire the services of an expert before making the purchase.

In reply to a question, he admitted that no such expert was included in his delegation to Australia.

When asked why he had not included Shahid Aslam, a qualified coach working at the NCA who has some knowledge of biomechanics labs, Naghmi said the name of Shahid was also brought up by the Australian experts who advised the delegation to involve him.

He said the PCB first contacted the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for information on biomechanics labs but realised that they were not willing to share their research with others.