LONDON, Oct 17: Pakistan pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar, sent home from the Champions Trophy after failing a drugs test, could have taken nandrolone inadvertently while being treated with herbal medicine, his doctor said.

“Shoaib is at the peak of his career and he is not a fool to do something that will curtail his career,” doctor Tauseef Razzaq told the Web site ICCChampionsTrophy.com.

“I have been treating him since the last five years and he is more like a son to me. He never hides anything from me and I can say that he can never take the banned substance deliberately,” Razzaq told the Web site from his Lahore home.

He said Shoaib, who along with fellow strike bowler Mohammad Asif faces a two-year ban after testing positive for the steroid, had been taking herbal medication prescribed by a local hakim (doctor) in Pakistan.

“After undergoing surgery in Australia earlier and subsequent treatment for the stress fracture, Shoaib has been seeing a hakim in Pakistan. It is a possibility that nandrolone drug was mixed in herbal medicines that he has been taking.

“He has been tested during the ICC events and 2003 World Cup but he has never tested positive,” said the doctor.—Reuters