Kaneria challenges ECB to go public with evidence

Former leg-spinner loses appeal against life ban on spot-fixing charges.

KARACHI: Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria has challenged the English and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to go public with the spot-fixing evidence against him, after he lost another appeal in London’s Commercial Court.

Kaneria said that the decision to dismiss his appeal took almost a year in the commercial court due to the ECB’s undue influence, otherwise the result could have been announced much earlier.

“I challenge the ECB to make the evidence against me public so that the world will know whether I’ve committed a crime or not,” Kaneria told The Express Tribune.



“I still say that I haven’t done anything wrong. My lawyers are waiting for the full decision and once we get that, we’ll plan our next course of action.”

Kaneria was barred by the ECB, in a ban subsequently applied globally by the International Cricket Council (ICC), for allegedly encouraging a teammate to bowl badly on purpose as part of a spot-fixing scam.

The ECB had charged Kaneria, then playing for Essex, with inducing teammate Mervyn Westfield to ‘deliberately concede’ runs in an English county limited overs match against Durham in 2010.

An ECB disciplinary panel found the charges had been proved after a hearing in 2012 and the decision to impose a life ban was upheld by a disciplinary panel set up under board regulations in 2013.

Kaneria took legal action, claiming the panel had been wrong both to uphold the life ban and to order him to pay ECB legal costs of £200,000.

But Judge Nicholas Hamblen said on Tuesday the appeal panel had not exceeded its powers and that there were no grounds to suggest an error of law had been made.

“This case has now been considered by two different independent panels and an experienced High Court judge,” said ECB chief executive David Collier in an ECB statement.

“Once again, in the light of Justice Hamblen’s ruling today (Tuesday) and the overwhelming weight of evidence laid against him, we would urge Mr Kaneria to publicly admit his guilt in this matter, apologise for betraying the trust of his former teammates at Essex and ask him to cooperate with both the ECB and the ICC in their ongoing efforts to root out corrupt activities within cricket.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2014.

Like Sports on Facebook, follow @ETribuneSports on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.