November 15 Friday 2002
PCB to wait for manager's report on ball-tampering

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said Thursday it was waiting for a team manager's report on accusations of ball-tampering against fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar in Zimbabwe before taking action.

"The team management has conveyed the incident to us but we have asked the team manager in Zimbabwe, Brigadier Khawaja Mohammad Nasir, to submit a detailed report before taking the matter further," PCB spokesman Samiul Hasan told.

Akhtar was found guilty in a disciplinary hearing at the Harare Sports Club on Tuesday evening of ball-tampering in the first Test against Zimbabwe. He was severely reprimanded for ball-tampering by former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd in his capacity as match referee for the tour of Zimbabwe.

"We have reason to believe that the offence was of minor magnitude because history suggest that players involved in ball tampering have been severely punished and Akhtar has been reprimanded only," PCB's Hasan said.

Akhtar took seven wickets in the match which Pakistan won by 119 runs. Pakistan's current captain Waqar Younis is the only bowler who was suspended for tampering with the ball in international cricket, during a match against Sri Lanka in 2000, while another Pakistani Azhar Mahmood was fined 50 percent of his match fee for the same offence in the same series.

Pakistan's famous bowling pair Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were accused of tampering the ball by English media during Pakistan's series in England in 1992, but no proof was found to support the claim.