Shoaib to file fresh appeal by Monday

Shoaib Akhtar has been allowed to file a fresh appeal by the appellate tribunal conducting his hearing against the five-year ban imposed on him after his lawyer said he hadn't received some documents from the Pakistan Cricket Board.

The three-man tribunal, headed by retired High Court judge Aftab Farrukh and including former Test player Haseeb Ahsan and former federal minister Saleem Taseer, held it first meeting on the appeal on April 17 but adjourned after 45 minutes when Shoaib's lawyer contended the Pakistan board hadn't provided them with all the documents regarding the matter.

"We have now allowed Shoaib's lawyer Abid Hasan Minto to file a fresh and revised appeal by April 21 after reviewing the additional documents," the Dawn newspaper quoted Farrukh as saying.

The hearings will now resume on April 26 but Farukkh didn't mention any date for the providing a verdict. "I can't give a date on when we can reach a judgment."

On April 1 the board banned Shoaib from playing cricket, for and in Pakistan, for violating the players' code of conduct. Shoaib filed an appeal against the ban and lashed out at the PCB saying he was being "victimised". Shoaib was already on two years' probation for hitting Mohammad Asif with a bat before the start of the World Twenty20 in South Africa in 2007. That offence saw him fined 3.4 million rupees ($52,000 dollars) and banned for 13 matches.