Pakistani middle-order batsman Umar Akmal has always been considered one of the country’s finest batsmen of the modern era. He made his debut for Pakistan across all three formats when he was still in his teens and since then, he’s always shown great promise. However, with only 3 centuries in more than 200 international games for Pakistan, that potenital was never really lived up to, despite several chances at the highest level.
You must’ve heard of the recent development of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) handing over the exciting 29-year old batsman a 3-year ban on playing cricket across formats. Wondering why?! Well, match-fixing and spot-fixing has always been considered one of the biggest crimes one can commit in sport and all of the international bodies and federations have made sure to bring down the whip on such cheaters in recent years.
While there’s no evidence of the younger Akmal brother having being directly involved in spot fixing, he was handed out the ban for failing to report the approaches of such fixers, before the latest season of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) T20 tournament. The ban was dushed out by PCB Disciplinary Panel chairman Justice (retired) Fazal-e-Miran.
He appeared before the National Cricket Academy in Lahore after failing to challenge a show cause notice sent to him for failing to report offers to fix matches in PSL 2020. He was found guilty of 2 breaches of Article 2.4.4 of the PCB Anti-Corruption Code in two incidents on March 17 2020. It was expected that he would get away with a 6-month or 1-year ban, but that was clearly not to be!
Umar Akmal handed three-year ban from all cricket by Chairman of the Disciplinary Panel Mr Justice (retired) Fazal-e-Miran Chauhan.
— PCB Media (@TheRealPCBMedia) April 27, 2020
It just goes to show that the PCB is taking cheating in cricket very seriously, which is a good sign for the game. It’s not the first time a cricketer has been suspended over match fixing concerns in the PSL. Recently, Nasir Jamshed got a ban while prior to him, the likes of Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Irfan, Khalid Latif, Sharjeel Khan and others were also handed out suspensions.
