Pakistan Cricket Board to issue charge sheet after opening batsman returned positive test
Shehzad tests positive to banned substance
The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that the player who returned a positive doping test, which was announced last month, was opening batsman Ahmed Shezhad.
The PCB announced on June 20 that an unidentified player had tested positive for a prohibited substance and they confirmed today that the player was Shezhad.
Please note that the report was received by PCB today.— PCB Official (@TheRealPCB) July 10, 2018
The PCB said it would issue a charge sheet later today. The substance Shezhad tested positive to was not revealed by the PCB.
Shezhad is an experienced opener who has scored more than 5000 runs for Pakistan across all three forms of the game, including 10 hundreds, since his international debut back in 2009.
He played in Pakistan's T20 series against Scotland last month but was not selected for the recent T20 tri-series in Zimbabwe involving the host nation and Australia.
Cricketers can be banned for up to two years if found guilty of taking banned substances, depending on the nature of the case.
Afghanistan wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad was handed a 12-month backdated ban last year after returning a positive test for clenbuterol, with his sentence lessoned after the ICC accepted that he'd inadvertently ingested the prohibited substance as part of a weight-loss product he was taking.
In 2016, Pakistan spinner Yasir Shah was banned for three months after he tested positive for chlortalidone. The ICC ruled that Yasir had inadvertently taken his wife's blood pressure medication, which contains chlortalidone, and gave him a lighter sentence.
In 2015, Pakistan spinner Raza Hasan returned a positive test for cocaine and was banned for two years.