LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has appealed in the World Court of Arbitration against the decision of its own-appointed independent adjudicator, reducing the ban on Test cricketer Umar Akmal from 36 months to 18 months in two different cases registered under the PCB Anti-Corruption Code of Conduct in February this year.

Umar was handed over 36 months ban by the PCB disciplinary panel in two different disciplinary cases, against which the cricketer had appealed. An independent adjudicator, retired Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, was appointed by the PCB to hear the appeal and Umar’s punishment was reduced to 18 months on compassionate grounds.

A press statement issued by the PCB Chief Operating Officer (COO) Salman Naseer said that though it is a painful decision to move to the World Court of Arbitration, it has been taken in view of PCB’s policy of zero tolerance in such cases.

“The PCB has two concerns over the decision of the Independent Adjudicator. The first is that the Justice has said the case is proved to the hilt and that statements of the cricketer are self-contradicting and not cricket-worthy. But when it came to punishment, he took compassionate grounds to reduce it to half. The second concern is that two independent incidents have happened and two different charges were framed for violating codes of conduct of the PCB Anti-corruption. The PCB has the stance the punishment should run separately in two cases and not together.”

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2020