Asif Afridi is back in action for Pakistan in the
Quaid-e-Azam Trophy despite the PCB’s February announcement that he had been
suspended for two years for violations of the anti-corruption code, with a
backdate of September 12, 2022. A few days after his suspension began on
September 16 and after more than a year, he played his first game.
This does not, however, violate the terms of his ban
because the PCB erred when it announced his ban for crimes including
corruption. In a previous order to bar him, it was specified that “a
two-year period of ineligibility” be imposed against him, “half of
which will be suspended”.
However, when the PCB publicised the punishment on
their official website and social media sites, they omitted any reference of
the sentence’s suspension and merely stated that he had been barred from
playing cricket for two years in any capacity. The statement also includes a
quotation from the former PCB chairman Najam Sethi, who said that suspending an
international cricketer for two years “gives the PCB no joy.”
Due to two transgressions of the PCB’s anti-corruption
code, Afridi was suspended. The more serious code infringement was a violation
of Article 2.4.10, which prohibits “directly or indirectly soliciting,
inducing, enticing, persuading, encouraging or intentionally facilitating any
participant to breach any of the foregoing provisions of this Article
2.4.” This crime’s exact nature has not been made public.
Afridi, 36, had a middling tournament debut for FATA
after his return, claiming two wickets in his first three games. But in his
most recent encounter, he defeated Faisalabad by taking seven wickets across
two innings.