Pakistan Cricket Board delaying decision of Shoaib case?

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) disciplinary committee last week completed hearing of Shoaib Akhtar’s misconduct case but is yet to announce its findings and the matter is prolonged unnecessarily creating speculations.The team manager Talat Ali banned him for five matches after his preliminary enquiry in South Africa ahead of the recently-concluded ICC World Twenty20 Cup which seemed that he had served his ban for not playing Twenty20 matches and had not been selected for two Test matches which is equal to four ODIs as per the ICC playing conditions.The lawyers of Shoaib Akhtar have been claiming the same that he has served the punishment and they have demanded that Shoaib should be included in the national squad or give an explanation that why he is not included in the team but they are yet to receive any response from the PCB. The PCB disciplinary committee comprising COO Shafqat Naghmi, DCO Zakir Khan and Director HR Nadeem Akram continued their mutual discussions to review Shoaib’s case but could not reach a conclusion. They are supposed to announce their decision today (Thursday).They seemed to have been facing a problem of any code at the domestic level to deal with such issues.

The ICC playing conditions do have a code of conduct to deal with the breaches of different levels but the incident is the internal affair of the PCB so they can’t implement the ICC code and have to stick with their own code as they have done earlier while dealing with the doping case involving Shoaib Akhtar and M Asif. Besides Shoaib-Asif spat, the committee is considering some other breaches by Shoaib Akhtar including media briefing without prior permission from the PCB. It is very likely that Shoaib could face some fine or ban under any other charges. But the cricket lovers are of the view that Shoaib should be included in the national team for the ODI series to strengthen the fast bowling department of the team. Meanwhile, Shoaib Akhtar has vowed to give his best to help Pakistan beat South Africa in the ODI series if given a chance. The committee should dispose of the issue as soon as possible to end the rumours.