Pakistan's Umar Akmal ban over corruption charges reduced from 36 months to 18 months

Akmal has so far played 16 Tests, 121 ODIs and 84 T20 internationals.

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Lahore: Former Pakistan Supreme Court Judge on Wednesday (July 29, 2020) announced to reduce the ban on Pakistan's cricket player Umar Akmal from three years to one and a half years.

Justice (retd) Faqir Muhammad Khokhar as an independent adjudicator announced his order on Umar Akmal’s appeal and said, "The self-incriminatory admission by the appellant both in his interview and reply to the show cause notice regarding the non-disclosure of vital information of approaches made to him about match-fixing on two occasions by two different persons leaves no room for doubt as to the veracity of the charges against him."

He added, "The stance taken by the appellant is self-contradictory and not credit-worthy. The case against the appellant stands proved to the hilt. The learned Chairman [of the Disciplinary Panel] has quite justifiably found the appellant guilty of both the charges."

The period of ineligibility imposed on Umar Akmal will run from, backdated to February 20, 2020, when he was suspended provisionally.

Earlier on April 27, 2020, the Chairman of the Disciplinary Panel, Mr Justice (retd) Fazal-e-Miran Chauhan, had banned Akmal for three years after finding him guilty of breaching Article 2.4.4 of the PCB Anti-Corruption Code in two separate incidents.

Born in 1990, Umar is the youngest of the three brothers who have represented Pakistan in International cricket. 

His elder siblings Kamran and Adnan have represented Pakistan as wicket-keepers and Umar himself is a part-time keeper.

Umar had scored a century on Test debut aged 19 in 2009 and has so far played 16 Tests, 121 ODIs and 84 T20 internationals.