Bangladesh Cricket Board and ICC appeal to reduce Mohammad Ashraful's ban

Mohammad Ashraful (File Photo)

Bangladesh Cricket Board and international cricket representatives want the ban for match-fixing on former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful to be reduced. The BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury revealed that the International Cricket Council (ICC) have joined hands with them and made an appeal.

Request to reduce ban time

The BCB lodged the appeal on the ban with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne this week.

Chowdhury stated to the AFP: "Our lawyers had been authorised to make a decision on the judgement, which reduced Ashraful's original eight-year ban for match fixing. And they decided to lodge an appeal."

The one-time prodigy was forbidden from playing international cricket after he had tearfully admitted on national television that he helped to fix matches in the Bangladesh Premier League. The tournament was not conducted this year, following the match-fixing controversies wherein two foreign players were also involved.

Late last month, a local appeals panel had cut the 30-year-old’s ban to five years which meant Ashraful can be back to competitive cricket in August 2016. There were 21 days for BCB to apply against the decision to the CAS.

Bangladesh’s youngest ever captain

Ashraful holds the record for being Test cricket’s youngest century maker and first played for Bangladesh at the age of 17. He has represented Bangladesh in 61 Tests, 177 one-day internationals and 23 T20 internationals games. The right-hand batsman was also appointed the captain in 2007 in all forms, making him the second youngest captain to lead an international team.

The ICC didn’t make any comments on the claims made by the BCB. Bangladesh authorities had asked the help of ICC’s anti-corruption investigators to screen their T20 league tournament for a better and clean sport, which led to unveiling of the fixing scams.