Pakistan cricket team player and Central Punjab skipper Ahmed Shehzad has been fined half of his match fee by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on the charges of ball-tampering during a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy — domestic tournament — match between Central Punjab and Sindh, which ended in an exciting draw in Faisalabad on Thursday.
“Ahmed Shehzad was found guilty of committing a Level 1 offence under Article 2.14, which relates to changing condition of the ball (non-identification) during a match,” said PCB in a press release on Friday.
The incident occurred during the 17th over of Sindh’s first innings on Tuesday when, during a normal inspection of the ball, on-field umpires Mohammad Asif and Zameer Ahmed found that the ball had been unfairly changed by a member of the fielding side.
The matter was reported to match referee Nadeem Arshad who, on the basis of a preliminary review, determined that Ahmed Shehzad, as captain, had a case to answer for the contravention as the incident related to non-identification of the player and a Notice of Charge was issued to him under the PCB Code of Conduct.
However, Ahmed in his defence later said: “We can agree to disagree in this incident as I maintain that the condition of the ball changed naturally due to the rough playing square and not artificially. I tried to convince the match officials, but they insisted and I accept and respect their