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Published 26 Sep, 2014 06:41am

Crackdown on bowlers with suspect action intensifies

KARACHI: Former Pakistan international Junaid Zia was reported for suspect action for the second time in the ongoing AlBaraka Bank presents Haier T20 Cup at the National Stadium here on Thursday.

According to the details made available by Intikhab Alam, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)’s Director Domestic Cricket Operations, out of the 28 bowlers reported this season in various tournaments, five bowlers to be reported twice in the T20 Cup are Junaid (Lahore Lions), Khurram Shehzad (Faisalabad Wolves), Nayyar Abbas (Sialkot Stallions), Nadeem Javed (Dera Murad Jamali Ibexes) and Jahanzeb Khan (Bahawalpur Stags).

The PCB has subsequently banned all of them from further bowling.

Hours after Junaid, who played four One-day Internationals against Bangladesh in 2003, an under-19 bowler was also hauled by the umpires.

The latest bowler to be reported for the second time is Shahbaz Wahla, an off-spinner who was playing for Multan Tigers against Karachi Zebras on Thursday in the PCB Inter-Region three-day match at Multan.

The nine bowlers in the list also includes three under-19 players who had been reported twice by match officials, will now report to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Lahore within the prescribed 21-day period to undergo tests under the PCB’s illegal bowling action committee headed by NCA chief coach and national selector Mohammad Akram.

The five-member committee also has spin bowling coach and ex-Test leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed, ICC elite panel Aleem Dar, senior general manager academies Ali Zia and senior general manager sports medicine Dr Sohail Saleem.

Not surprisingly, the 28-man list reported so far includes no less than 17 off-spinners following the suspension of Pakistan’s top bowler Saeed Ajmal after he was reported for suspect bowling under the Galle Test against Sri Lanka last month.

Five of the reported bowlers are slow left-armers, five medium or fast-medium bowlers and one leg-break bowler.

Following is the list of bowlers reported for suspected action:

Regional Inter-District Under-19 (total bowlers eight):

Basit Ali Khan (leg-break); Ramzan Butt (off-spinner), Masood Baig (slow left-armer), Sher Khan (off-spinner), Kamran Rehmani (off-spinner), Agha Shaharyar (off-spinner), Naseebullah (off-spinner), Nauman Ahmed (left-arm medium-pacer).

Regional Inter-District Senior (total bowlers two):

Ataullah (off-spinner), Wasim Akhtar (off-spinner).

Inter-regional Under-19 Three-day (total bowlers nine):

Faazullah (off-spinner), Shahbaz Wahla (off-spinner, twice reported), Abdul Quddoos (off-spinner), Mohammad Naeem (slow left-armer, twice reported), Mohammad Asif (right-arm medium), Shafqatullah (off-spinner, twice reported), Samiullah (off-spinner, twice reported), Mohammad Aamir (slow left-armer), Kamran Shaukat (off-spinner).

National T20 Cup (total bowlers nine):

Sohaib Maqsood (off-spinner), Nayyar Abbas, slow left-armer, twice reported), Faraz Ahmed Khan (slow left-armer), Ataullah (fast-medium), Jahanzeb Khan (off-spinner, twice reported), Junaid Zia (medium-pacer, twice reported), Nadeem Javed (medium-pacer, twice reported), Usman Malik (off-spinner), Khurram Shehzad (off-spinner, twice reported).

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2014

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