Ban rethink defied global guidelines, says panelist

Danish Zaheer, an expert on the panel that overturned the drugs ban on Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, has spoken out saying that the decision to lift the ban went against world doping guidelines. But he added that the original tests on the two bowlers were flawed as there was confusion over a urine sample and forms were not dated properly.

Zaheer was the lone dissenting voice on the three-man panel that included Justice Fakhruddin Ebrahim and Haseeb Ahsan, a former Test cricketer. "I differed on the verdict simply because... those [reasons] given by the appellate may not be acceptable to the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA]," said Zaheer "There were numerous major evidence-based departures from international standards while conducting tests on the Pakistani cricketers and due to these the whole procedure becomes null and void."

The forms had no names on them, said Zaheer, who is also the vice-president of the Asian Federation of Sports Medicine. "It could not be established whose urine sample it was, whether of Inzamam-ul-Haq or of Akhtar."

The panel had overturned the ban on the ground that the players were never warned or cautioned against taking supplements. "There was no proper notification to the players for the tests, as you need to give players written notifications before testing, but instead players were informed on the telephone," he said. "The two bowlers did not know much about doping and that was why they refused to have their 'B' samples tested, which was very important."

The WADA filed an appeal against the panel's decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) based in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 22.