Shehzad decides not to challenge dope test result

LAHORE: Suspended opening batsman Ahmed Shehzad has decided not challenge the results of his doping test as the final deadline to challenge the result of the test ended on Friday.

Shehzad has said that he did not take the performance enhancement medicine on purpose. “It was a mistake,” he added. A tribunal of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will hear the matter and lawyer Babar Awan will represent the batsman. The lawyer will fight to get the cricketer’s punishment reduced.

He failed the drug test conducted during a domestic tournament in April and could face a ban of up to four years. The offence is the latest in a long litany of Pakistani players charged with doping and is a severe blow to the 26-year-old’s stuttering career.

Shehzad lost his test place following Pakistan’s tour to the West Indies in mid-2017 and has not played a one day international since last October. He was part of Pakistan’s Twenty20 squad for the team’s two international matches last month, managing scores of 14 and 24, but missed out on playing for the tri-series Twenty20 in Zimbabwe which ended recently Pakistan’s cricketers have a history of failing tests for performance enhancing drugs.

Pace bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were both caught using banned substances in 2006 but were later given a reprieve after a tribunal set aside their drug tests. Later rule changes led to a two-year ban for left-arm spinner Raza Hasan, who failed a doping test in 2015.Two other Pakistan spinners, Yasir Shah and Abdur Rehman, have also received temporary bans in recent years.