Punished Ghauri to Appeal Against Ban
KARACHI: International umpire Nadeem Ghauri termed his four-year ban as ‘unjust’, and said that he would appeal against the punishment.
He also hinted at the possibility of taking the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to court if his plea was ignored.
Ghauri was banned along with Anis Siddiqui, who received a three-year ban, after the two umpires were found guilty by the PCB committee. The committee had probed into the duo’s role in India TV’s sting operation last October through which corruption allegations against six umpires had surfaced.
Ghauri, a former Test cricketer who officiated in five Tests, 43 One-Day Internationals and four Twenty20 internationals, refused to accept the charges against him.
“There is no truth to it,” Ghauri told reporters at a press conference in Lahore yesterday. “I will never accept the charges against me. I have been punished for a sin that I have not committed. My only mistake was to keep a friendly conversation going. I was unaware of what they were up to.
“They just posed as if they were offering a contract for a league event in Sri Lanka. The offer they placed was lucrative and any umpire would have been attracted towards it.
“It included $4,500 for a match and Rs100,000 for a month, even during the off season. However, I still asked them to approach the PCB first to get the required documents,” said the 50-year-old official.
