A former Pakistan cricket captain and a prominent lawyer have been named to a three-member tribunal to probe two Pakistani bowlers who failed a doping test during the Champions Trophy in India, a Pakistan Cricket Board official said Thursday.
Fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif returned home Monday after they were pulled out of the ongoing tournament in India for testing positive for the banned steroid Nandrolone.
Intikhab Alam, a former Pakistan captain, who has also been the Pakistani team's manager, and Shahid Hamid, a prominent Supreme Court lawyer, will be on the tribunal to ``ascertain facts'' surrounding the incident, PCB spokesman Amir Bilal said.
A third member of the inquiry team, who is going to be someone with ``in-depth knowledge of doping and related matters,'' has yet to be named, Bilal said.
The tribunal will ``look into the details of this happening and find out actual facts, conduct an inquiry and ascertain facts . . . and determine whether they are guilty,'' Bilal told The Associated Press.
The tribunal will be held at the PCB headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore and proceedings will begin when the third panel member is appointed, Bilal said, without specifying a date.
Akhtar and Asif ``will definitely appear'' before the tribunal, he said.
The two players have denied using the banned substance deliberately.
They face a two-year ban but could be given a lesser punishment if they're found to have used Nandrolone unintentionally, a PCB official has said earlier.
Akhtar, 31, dubbed the ``Rawalpindi Express,'' is one of cricket's fastest bowlers and has taken 165 wickets in 42 Test matches and 208 wickets at an average of 23.33 in 133 limited-overs internationals.
Asif, 23, has 30 wickets in six Test matches at an average of 21.16 and 19 wickets in 17 one-day internationals.
Alam was manager of the Pakistani team that won the World Cup in 1992 while Hamid was a lawyer for former Test cricketer, Salim Malik, who was banned for life in 2000 after a judicial inquiry found him guilty of match-fixing.
