By Omar Khalid, IANS,
Karachi: Pakistan’s runaway wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider was Friday cleared for national duty after the Pakistan Cricket Board slapped him with a fine of Rs.500,000.
The fine was imposed on Haider for violating the PCB’s code of conduct when he fled to London from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year without informing the team management.
Haider appeared before a PCB disciplinary committee in Lahore Friday. The committee carried out a hearing for two hours before announcing its decision.
“None of Haider’s claims was proved right,” PCB’s legal advisor Tafazzul Rizvi told IANS. “The committee decided to fine him but now he is cleared for national duty,” he added.
However, the development doesn’t mean that Haider will make a return to the national team.
The national selection committee will decide whether he is good enough to win back his place in the Pakistan team for its next international assignment — the tour of Zimbabwe later this summer.
Haider hoped that national selectors will give him another chance.
“I am ready to give my best for Pakistan and hope that the selectors will consider me.”
Haider left the national team’s hotel during the one-day series against South Africa in the UAE last November and flew to London, seeking asylum in Britain. He said he got death threats from match-fixers.
However, he returned home in April after assurances from the country’s interior minister Rehman Malik over his security.