PCB denies Shoaib, Asif underwent dope tests

KARACHI: Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Nasim Ashraf on Thursday strongly dismissed suggestions that pacers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were pulled out of the World Cup after they failed a secret dope test in London.

The announcement came just hours after the International Cricket Council issued a statement on the doping issue which said the Shoaib and Asif dope fiasco in the Champions Trophy had been an embarrassment for the sport and teams would be subjected to target tests in the mega event.

Sources said that the ICC had taken the step of issuing a statement on the doping issue as it was fed up with the PCB prolonging the Shoaib and Asif issue.

"It forced the PCB to play its cards," one source said. But Ashraf insisted that the duo, Shoaib suffering from knee injury and Asif bothered by his elbow, may take a long time to recover and were therefore pulled out of the team.

"The truth is both of them are injured and they may take even months to make a full recovery," Ashraf said after the two were ruled out of the World Cup citing fitness problems.

"The Board's medical panel will soon check them out but the chances of them recovering quickly from their injuries is very bleak," he added.

Akhtar and Asif have been replaced by Mohammad Sami and Yasir Arafat.

Sources in the ICC, however, said that the game's governing body had been asking the PCB to confirm to them the names of the players they were sending to the World Cup by Friday, the last date for all teams to name their players.

An ICC spokesman confirmed that till the noon on Thursday, they had not received any written request from the PCB with the medical certificates asking for permission to replace Shoaib and Asif in the squad.

"We have not received it as yet so we are waiting. But Boards need to send a proper medical certificate outlining the nature of an injury due to which they want to change a selected player in the squad," he said.

The media in Pakistan has been speculating that Shoaib and Asif were sent to London for private dope tests to find out the level of the banned substance, nandrolone remaining in their body and that was why they did not appear for the dope tests done on all the other World Cup players and reserves.

"Apparently the resuls of the private tests were not conclusive so the decision to drop them. Even if the players were injured why didn't they take the dope tests in Pakistan like the other players," the source questioned.

Shoaib and Asif had tested positive for nandrolone last October and were called back from the Champions Trophy in India. After being banned they were later exonerated by an appeals committee of the Board.

Ashraf said Pakistan will feel the duo's absence. There is also some confusion on whether the PCB has got the written medical reports on the two bowlers from London as it said in a press release that it had received 'verbal reports' from doctors that the two players require more time to become fit.