LONDON, (Reuters) – Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria’s appeal against a life ban from cricket for spot-fixing was dismissed by an England and Wales cricket board disciplinary panel yesterday.
Kaneria, who has repeatedly denied any involvement in trying to engineer particular situations in a game, was banned in June last year after being found guilty of corruption while playing for county side Essex in 2009.
The 32-year-old Kaneria, who has played 61 tests, was convicted of “cajoling and pressurising” former team mate Mervyn Westfield into accepting money for conceding a set number of runs in a match.
He was hoping to get the ban reduced but an appeal panel of the ECB’s Cricket Discipline Commission said it should stand.
However, the panel also ruled on Tuesday that Westfield’s five-year ban from the game be reduced and said he could return to club cricket after April 1, 2014 provided he cooperated fully with the Professional Cricketers’ Association anti-corruption education programmem the ECB said in a statement.
