Spot fixing tribunal delay rulings until February 5th
The trial regarding the spot fixing allegations against three key Pakistani players, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir, and Salman Butt, took another turn when the tribunal delayed the decision announcement till the 5th of February.
ICC made its case against the three players during the course of the hearings and on the second day of the hearing, the anti corruption tribunal heard the three key witnesses through the sessions and prepared for the three suspects to initiate their defense.
As the hearings had started in Doha, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Qatar-c2986 it was expected that the suspected players would get the verdict on Tuesday 11th January.
During the course of the trial, Salman Butt was questioned regarding the Oval Test too, which was played between Pakistan and England in the summer of 2010. Pakistan won that match and Salman Butt was struck with a surprise as no one had anticipated the
hearing to include questioning over the Oval Test.
Michael Beloff QC (Queen’s Counsel), the head of the three man tribunal, said that Amir and Asif were exonerated from all the indictments regarding the Oval Test whereas the allegations against Salman Butt were not cleared and were still standing against
the captain of the side at that time.
The fact that the Oval Test was also under question, endowed every one with another interesting turn in the course of the 6 day hearings.
Now until the final verdict till the 5th February, all three players will remain completely suspended from cricketing activities.
The three man tribunal headed by Michael Beloff QC, alongside Sharad Rao and Albue Sachs eventually made a statement at the end of the six day hearing. They revealed that the tribunal had been constituted to put under question the two Tests played between
England and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 in the summer of 2010 at the Oval and Lords.
The three players under suspicion could not be given a final verdict because the tribunal wants to handle this matter with utter delicacy.
Representations were presented to the tribunal and the final verdict is deferred till 5th of February in order to completely go through all the relevant evidence and case presented by the suspects in their defense. The tribunal also said that
"The task of studying the issues at hand, arriving at a decision and issuing an in-depth hand-written reason for its decision would not be feasible in the timeframe agreed for this hearing in Doha.”
A further hearing will now be conducted at Doha on 5th of next month to conclude the final decision which shall be announced to the concerned parties on the date. The matter at hand is a very delicate one and could lead to a possible ban of 5
years to a life time.
In addition, the lawyers of the players also expressed their desires to delay the announcement of the result for some time to completely go through the case in detail.
Beloff announced on the final day that all charges regarding the Lord’s Test stand whereas an opposing statement was delivered by Asif’s lawyers office which is situated in London that Asif has been waived off for one charge.
Asif co-operated completely with the tribunal proceedings and is expecting a positive outcome from the trial.
Amir’s lawyer, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-c89347 Karim, who requested the delaying of the decision announcement, clarified how it would help his client deal well with the issue at hand.
Now that the case is further delayed and the probable team list has to be submitted to ICC for the World Cup, will it diminish the chances for the three Pakistani players to get their names entered into the list?
According to quite a few cricket experts from Pakistan, the decision to delay the verdict until the 5th is not necessary and is somewhat absurd.
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