Banned threesome to play departmental cricket (28 August 1999)

28 August 1999

Banned threesome to play departmental cricket

Farhan Anis

The three suspended Pakistan Test stars will represent their respective departments in the forthcoming 1999-2000 domestic cricket season. Habib Bank have included Salim Malik and Ijaz Ahmad in their 25 man provisional squad while Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) have retained their captain Wasim Akram.

The three are set to be seen in action in the National One-day Championship starting from Sept 20. They will also be eligible for selection in the Quaid-I-Azam Trophy scheduled to start in October.

The officials of the two departments, requesting not to be identified, argued that they picked the three players because the cricket administrators did not inform them about their suspension at domestic level also. They added that they had also withheld their teams until the last date of the deadline (Aug 25) after being informed that the decision about their suspension would be communicated to them.

"We were told that the decision by the judicial commission would be announced before Aug 25. But when the decision didn't come not we received anything from adhoc committee, we decided to include their names," they said.

The department organizers observed that as far as they thought, the suspension was temporary. They added that if they were exonerated, they would become eligible for selection while in the other case they would be banned for life.

"If we had not picked them and the players had been acquited, we would then have to pay Rs.10,000 for their registration. Now we have included them with an understanding with the Domestic Tournament Monitoring Committee (DTMC) that if the three players are banned for life, we would be allowed replacements without depositing any registration fee," they said.

In 1994-95, the then ad hoc committee of Javed Burki suspended Salim Malik for seven months. During that period, he, along with Ijaz Ahmed, was not allowed to play for Habib Bank in the Patron's Trophy match at Sahiwal despite the fact that the two players had travelled all the way from Lahore to participate in that match and the bank had nothing in writing regarding the future of the two players.

The chairman of the PCB ad hoc committee Mujeeb-ur-Rehman said from Islamabad that it has not been decided yet whether the three players would be allowed to participate in the domestic circuit. He said there was a possibility that the situation would be clear before Sept 20 "But if it doesn't, then we will cross the bridge when it comes" indicating that the final decision regarding their appearance would be taken around Sept 17, if the judicial commission doesn't announce its decision. He, however, minced no words in saying that if the judicial named any of the players involved in foul-play "they would not only be banned from international cricket but also from domestic circuit".

Source :: CricInfo365