DHAKA: Former Bangladesh cricket captain Mohammad Ashraful received a lifeline on Monday after a special appeal panel reduced his lengthy ban by three years allowing him to return to competitive cricket as early as August 2016.

The cricketer, 30, was originally slapped with an eight-year ban from all forms of cricket in June this year after he was found guilty of match-fixing by a tribunal set up by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).

But a disciplinary appeal panel “set aside” the sanction and reduced the ban to five years including two-year suspended sentence provided the star batsman participates in the “anti-corruption education and training programme to be organised by the BCB and the International Cricket Council (ICC)”.

Ashraful would now “be entitled to return to cricket on or about Aug 13, 2016 upon production of a certificate of good conduct from ICC,” the panel said in its verdict.

There was no comment from the batsman, arguably the country’s most famous sportsman before he fell from grace last year after admitting match-fixing during the 2013 edition of the local T20 cricket meet called Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).

The panel also reduced the ban of Sri Lankan cricketer Kaushal Lokuarachchi by six months,allowing him to play cricket from August this year. Earlier he was banned for 18 months.

Published in Dawn, September 30th , 2014