Pakistan batsman Umar Akmal’s three-year ban was reduced to 18 months on Wednesday. The batsman received the ban for failing to report corrupt approaches earlier this year. His ban will now effectively run from February 2020 to August 2021.
Independent adjudicator Faqir Mohammad Khokhar reduced the 30-year-old’s sentence. Akmal expressed dissatisfaction with the ruling. He has vowed to appeal again.
“There have been many cricketers before me who have committed corruption but none of them were given a punishment as severe as mine. I will appeal once more to get my sentence reduced,” Akmal was quoted as saying by the local media here after the fresh decision.
He faced the ban in April for failing to report approaches ahead of the Pakistan Super League. He had accepted his mistake, but tried to justify his position.
The PCB charged him with two breached of Article 2.4.4 of its Anti-Corruption Code in two unrelated incidents on March 17.
He was provisionally suspended hours before the opening match of the 2020 PSL. His Pakistan Super League team Quetta Gladiators was to take on Islamabad that day.
Akmal had earlier escaped a PCB ban in February. He had allegedly made crude remarks to a trainer during a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore.