LAHORE, Oct 5: In a surprising move the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) disciplinary committee, which started its proceedings on Friday, has omitted from its charge sheet the principal allegation against Shoaib Akhtar, of hitting his team-mate Mohammad Asif with a cricket bat.

Shoaib’s lawyer, Bilal Mintoo and the PCB Chief Operating Officer (COO) Shafqat Naghmi both, while talking to Dawn, admitted that the primary charge of hitting Asif with the bat was not included in the charge sheet.

On Friday, when contacted, Mintoo disclosed the charge sheet, which he received didn’t contain the charge of Asif being struck with a bat in South Africa.

“There are three charges which Shoaib has to defend; the first one is: why the bowler played a charity match for England player Chris Lewis on Aug 8 without the PCB permission, the second and third relate to the bowler’s open criticism in the press after reaching Lahore from South Africa, and his criticism of the PCB anti-doping committee’s decision of his two-year suspension,” he added.

Shoaib could only be banned under the charge of playing a match without permission, and under rest of the charges, the lawyer added, the bowler could only be fined.

Mintoo explained that playing a charity match was different from entering into a game for commercial purposes, and according to the central contract, he continued, a player could be banned for playing the latter and not for a good purpose.

Furthermore, he questioned, if Shoaib was charged with playing a charity match two months back, why the PCB had included him in Pakistan team for the Twenty20 World Championship. He pointed out that at the press conference Shoaib also praised the PCB for helping him during the doping scandal and it did not criticise the board.

The lawyer insisted that the bowler had already received a five-match suspension for hitting with the bat and showed ignorance that the PCB chairman had overruled the suspension, before setting up the inquiry.

“If the PCB set up the inquiry to announce further punishment for Shoaib then under which rule Shoaib missed the World Twenty20 matches,” he asked.

Meanwhile, when contacted, Naghmi seconded the lawyer’s viewpoint, saying the disciplinary committee, in its initial meeting, had considered this point and thus decided to exclude the main charge from the charge sheet.

“The manager, in his report, has penalised Shoaib for five matches and as the bowler had missed matches of the World Twenty20, we can’t announce double punishment in one case,” Naghmi said.

When his attention was drawn to the PCB chief’s announcement after the incident, Naghmi said that might be the result of a ‘miscommunication’.

Surprisingly, the decision of omitting the main charge was not in the knowledge of the PCB Director Media Dr Ahsan Hameed Malik.

When he was contacted on this issue a day before (Thursday), he informed that the disciplinary committee would decide when Shahid Afridi and Asif come before the committee to record their statements.