Pakistani opener Sharjeel Khan's problems increased in spot-fixing scandal

According to a Pakistan Cricket Board’s lawyer, the former national team opener Sharjeel Khan’s problems have augmented further in the spot-fixing scandal after England National Crime Agency (ENCA) official’s statement was released. The ENCA operations manager Andrew Ephgrave’s statement given to PCB was a testimonial to a fact that Sharjeel was involved in the scandal which includes a number of other Pakistani players.

They were accused of spot-fixing in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) season second’s opening match between Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi in Dubai. Lawyers from both PCB‘s Anti-Corruption Tribunal and ENCA have cross examined their reports to determine who is guilty and these reports will be submitted to the tribunal shortly. Sharjeel’s attorney, on the other hand, is confident that Ephgrave’s comments will scarcely have an impact on the final outcome.

The core story

Sharjeel had scored just one run off two deliveries in the match between Islamabad and Peshawar and the way he started defending the ball raised doubts. When an investigation was conducted on this issue, a three-member tribunal was formed by the PCB on March 6 to investigate the southpaw alongside Rashid Latif.

Sharjeel, Latif and Shahzaib Hasan are currently under scrutiny for breaching the ACC’s Code of Conduct during the course of the second edition of the PSL. Some other International stars like Mohammad Irfan, Nasir Jamshed and Mohammad Nawaz were also accused of spot-fixing. But these two players had failed to prove their innocence and got penalised.

The spot-fixing scandals have been haunting the progress of Pakistani cricket for a long time. From the likes of Mohammad Amir, Mohamad Asif and Salman Butt to Sharjeel Khan (accused) in the present, PCB has tried its best to get rid of it but haven’t succeeded the way they’d like.

Whilst Sharjeel’s future hangs in the air, it’s highly likely that he might get penalised as most of the shreds of evidence have been against him as far as the reports and rumours are concerned. The entire brouhaha over PSL’s success got neutralised with these set of peculiar incidents and the future of many cricketers is at stake.