Pakistan’s Umar Akmal gets ban halved to 18 months
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan batsman Umar Akmal’s three-year ban for an anti-corruption breach has been halved by an independent adjudicator, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said yesterday.
The middle-order batsman was banned in April for failing to report approaches to engage in corrupt practices ahead of this year’s Pakistan Super League Twenty20 competition.
Umar, who last played for Pakistan in a Twenty20 International against Sri Lanka in Lahore last year, appealed against the suspension in May.
Independent adjudicator Faqir Muhammad Khokhar said Umar’s confession that he failed to report match-fixing approaches on two occasions had left “no room for doubt as to the veracity of the charges.
“The stance taken by the appellant is self-contradictory and not credit-worthy. The case against the appellant stands proved to the hilt,” the retired Supreme Court judge added.
However, the PCB said the adjudicator, “taking a compassionate view” had reduced Umar’s ban to 18 months, backdating the start to Feb. 20 when the player was provisionally suspended.
Umar, whose brothers Adnan and Kamran have also featured for Pakistan, will be eligible to play from August 2021 but the 30-year-old hopes to return earlier.
“I will decide about the remaining sentence and try to get it reduced further,” he told local media after his hearing.
“For now I am not satisfied and will consult my lawyers and family how to take this ahead. There are many players before me who made mistakes and just look at what they got and what I got.” (Reuters) - England named an unchanged squad for first match of the three-test series against Pakistan that begins on Aug. 5 in Manchester, the country’s cricket Board (ECB) said yesterday.
England beat West Indies 2-1 in the first international test series since the COVID-19 pandemic suspended the sport in March, winning the third test by 269 runs on Tuesday.
After losing the first test in Southampton, England roared back into the series with allrounder Ben Stokes shining in the second to level it at 1-1 before fast bowler Stuart Broad guided the home side to victory with 10 wickets in the third match.
James Bracey, Ben Foakes, Jack Leach and Dan Lawrence have been named in the reserves.
The test series against Pakistan will also be held behind closed doors in a bio-secure bubble, even though a limited number of fans will be allowed to attend county cricket matches with social distancing guidelines in place.
“Our 14-man squad is unchanged,” national selector Ed Smith said in a statement. “County cricket now restarts on Saturday, Aug. 1. We want to have sufficient reserves inside the biosecure test match bubble. “But we may also want to give opportunities, where possible, for the reserves to play county cricket. As we seek the best balance here, England may make changes to the reserves during the three-match series against Pakistan.”
The second (Aug. 13-17) and third test (Aug. 21-25) will be held in Southampton.
England test squad: Joe Root (captain), Ben Stokes, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Dom Sibley, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Dominic Bess, Stuart Broad, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood.