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_: The besieged former limited overs Pakistan skipper Shahid Afri di had no time to follow the due process chalked out by Pakistan Cricket Board to face charges leveled against him by his cricket employer. He wanted to act quick to get the PCB decision of revoking NOC that had barred him from playing abroad over turned. There was no other quick fix than approaching the Sindh High Court and plead the case.
The player is all set to get a temporarily relief from the rulings of the PCB which had locked him out of international cricket by withdrawing NOC usually granted as a matter of routine to the players under the contract or playing in domestic national cricket season.
Once the NOC clause against him was withdrawn, he would be free to play in English T20 season for Hampshire county and also lead a team in next months Sri Lanka Premier League which will be played on the pattern of IPL.
His legal team of Mehmood Mandviwala and Syed Asif zafar drafted a constitutional petition that fitted exactly into scheme of things that the player wanted. And, when the petition was presented before a two member bench headed by Sindh chief justice Mushi r Alam the result was in favour of the player.
Entertaining the petition, the Sindh High Court bench stayed Pakistan Cricket Board from holding a planned meeting of the three member Disciplinary Committee which was advised to look into the charges and seek official explanation from the player. The High Court asked the PCB to appear before him and respond to the issues raised in the petition.
The PCB had every right to proceed against Shahid Af ridi for breaching the code of conduct. However, behaving like an angry bull in a china shop the PCB lost sight of the principle of law which demands that the punishment should be according to intensity of the crime committed.
Suspending his central contract was acceptable but when PCB announced revoking NOC for playing abroad was unacceptable.
The decision to suspend NOC to Afridi catapulted purely a local matter into international arena with two countries directly affected by the decision.
Hampshire county which had signed a contract with Afridi to play for its...