Good news for Pakistan cricket team; a Pakistan tribunal has give clean chit to ‘Rawalpindi Express’ Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif in the doping case lifting the two and one years ban imposed respectively. The three-member commission ruled that the duo pacemen were oblivious of the steroid, nandrolone, contamination in the supplements they were consuming.

The bowlers earlier vowed to fight against the drug offenses charged against them during Champions Trophy in India and proved their innocence that they are not aware of any anti-doping measures or publications warning them with this respect to supplements with banned substances they often use to recover from injuries.

Both the players are now ready to fire up pitches with their pace in West Indies, however, the PCB is yet to decide on their inclusion in the team for the forthcoming series.

Dr Danish Zaheer, head of the Pakistan Sports Medicine Association, admitted:

There were many procedural lapses in the notification, sampling, storage, documentation and result management process to make the entire testing questionable and not fully reliable.

Although, the PCB has given it’s verdict, ICC has no comments on the issue. The saga doesn’t ends here, though it has saved the face of cricket this time, it also calls for strict action plan to combat further doping incidents. I doubt that most of the cricket-playing nations have complete information with respect to banned drugs and proper medical facilities to check its abuse by the players.

Via: CNN