‘Whistleblower’ Yasir not banned from playing in national T20 championship: PCB

KARACHI - Yasir Hameed, who made claims over match-fixing in the team during Pakistan’s infamous tour to England earlier this year, before retracting from his comments, is not banned from playing in the National Twenty20 Championship, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has stated.

“The PCB has not advised any affiliated association, taking part in the championship, to ignore Yasir for selection,” the Daily Times quoted PCB spokesman Nadeem Sarwar, as saying.

“He is free to play from any team, but selection of teams is prerogative of the associations and the PCB has nothing to do with it,” he added.

However, Yasir has confirmed that neither his home team Peshawar nor his adopted team Abbotabad, whom he represented in the past in domestic cricket, have named him in their squads for the popular tournament that will start from October 10 in Lahore.

Peshawar Cricket Association President Syed Fayyaz said that they had not picked Yasir on technical grounds. “Yasir played for Abbotabad in the last domestic season in one of the tournaments, and under the PCB laws he can’t represent any other association for the next six months. That is why he is not in our squad.”

The head of the Abbotabad Association, Amin Nawab, said that he wanted to play Yasir, but the batsman refused saying he would like to play for Peshawar. “Since now we have submitted our final list of players for the national championship we can’t do anything for him.”

Yasir’s exclusion from the national T20 event has come as a surprise, as he has been a leading scorer in domestic cricket, and was even included in the Test team for the England tour.

The batsman was at the centre of the spot-fixing controversy on that tour, when a British tabloid released his video interview, in which Yasir was shown claiming that several Pakistani players were involved in betting and corruption. (ANI)