London : Former leg-spinner Danish Kaneria’s application to appeal against a life ban for corruption in English county cricket has been refused, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Tuesday.
The 33-year-old Kaneria, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, has now exhausted all legal options open to him after the Court of Appeal said his application was “totally without merit.”
Kaneria denied involvement in trying to engineer particular situations in a game and was banned under the ECB’s anti-corruption regulations in June 2012.
A disciplinary panel found him guilty of corruption while playing for county side Essex in 2009.
He was convicted of ‘cajoling and pressurising’ former team mate Mervyn Westfield into accepting money for conceding a set number of runs in a match. “Rt Hon Sir Stanley Burnton, sitting in the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, ruled that the application by Kaneria was ‘totally without merit’,” the ECB said in a statement.
“He also decided that Kaneria could not request the decision to be reconsidered at an oral hearing. It means that Kaneria has exhausted all the legal options available to him to appeal a life ban imposed for his role in spot fixing while playing for Essex.”
ECB chairman Giles Clarke said the ruling body welcomed the decision.
“Mr Kaneria acted as a recruiter of potential ‘spot-fixers’ and used his seniority and international experience to target and corrupt a young and vulnerable player,” Clarke said.
“It is high time that Mr Kaneria came clean about his involvement in these corrupt activities and stopped misleading the Pakistan cricket fans and wider public with his empty protestations of innocence.”
Tweaker to continue his fight
Karachi: Pakistan’s banned leg-spinner, Danish Kaneria will not give up his fight to get his name cleared and seek damages from the England and Wales cricket board which imposed the punishment on him for spot fixing. Brother of Danish said the matter was not over. “We are facing lot of financial difficulties because of the legal costs we have incurred since 2012 but we will support Danish all the way. He is convinced he has not got justice nor has any court heard him properly so he wants to fight on as he is innocent,” Vicky Kaneria told PTI. “We will sit down with our lawyers and decide the future course of action.” A source close to Danish said he still had the option of approaching the European Courts or the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – but what he has to consider was could he now bear the financial costs of these appeals.
