Ban on Akhtar upheld but free to play abroad
A Pakistani appeals committee on Wednesday temporarily upheld a five-year ban imposed on fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar but said he was free to play cricket outside the country.
The 32-year-old paceman was banned earlier this month for breaching the players' code of conduct by publicly criticising the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after he was not offered a central contract.
"Shoaib Akhtar can play anywhere outside Pakistan. The disciplinary committee did not restrain him from playing anywhere in the world," retired judge Aftab Farrukh, the head of the three-member tribunal, told reporters.
Akhtar has expressed a desire to play in a domestic cricket tournament in India.
Farrukh said the main hearing into Akthar's appeal against the ban would take place in June and that the ban on playing in or for Pakistan would stay in place until then.
"We have seen Shoaib's track record and believe that he has not learnt any lesson. He flouted discipline of the board, he harmed the chairman of the board and fellow cricketers and above all sentiments of the nation," he said.
Akthar this week tendered an unconditional apology to the public, the PCB and his teammates in an apparent attempt at mitigation.
The fiery paceman, who has a history of discipline problems and injuries, hit out at the PCB in January after he was excluded from a list of 15 contracted players and was then hauled up before a disciplinary committee.
He was already on two years' probation for hitting teammate Mohammad Asif with a bat a few days before the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September last year.