Asif awaits fate

Mohammad Asif faces a drug panel on Saturday

Pakistan paceman Mohammad Asif faces the prospect of a two-year ban from all cricket when he goes before an Indian Premier League drugs panel tomorrow.

The 26-year-old is scheduled to appear before a three-man tribunal in Mumbai after testing positive for banned steroid nandrolone during the inaugural edition of the IPL last year.

The three-man panel will have the power to ban Asif for a minimum of two years and comprises of former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, the former vice-chancellor of India's Maharashtra University of Health Sciences Dr Ravi Bapat and lawyer Shirish Gupte.

Asif is expected to plead his innocence when he fronts the tribunal.

Backed by his lawyer, Shahid Karim, Asif has continually said he did not take the steroid since being implicated last July.

Those protestations were undermined when his ‘B’ sample, which was tested by a World Anti-Doping recognised laboratory in Geneva, also returned a positive result when tested in August.

But Karim remains confident of his client’s innocence and has subsequently indicated that a perceived flaw in the IPL’s testing programme will form the basis of his defence.

There was a variation between the levels of nandrolone found between the ‘A’ and ‘B’ samples, which Karim has highlighted.

“Our stand is very clear that Asif did not take any banned substance and we feel the procedure adopted in the IPL was flawed,” Karim said earlier this month.

Should Asif be found guilty there is a possibility Karim will ask his ban be backdated to July last year, when the player was banned from all cricket by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Asif was detained in Dubai last year when he was found to be in possession of 0.24 grams of opium

That decision came immediately after the IPL named Asif as the player who had returned a positive test - perhaps a tough stance given at that point Asif’s ‘B’ sample had not been tested.

As a result, Asif has not appeared for Pakistan or in domestic cricket since April last year.

It is a scenario that has clearly troubled Asif, who has played just 11 Test since his debut in 2005, and who this week decided to terminate his lucrative IPL contract with the Delhi Daredevils to focus on fighting his case.

Asif also has a new PCB inquiry over his 19-day detention at Dubai Airport hanging over his head.

That inquiry was called this week under pressure from the International Cricket Council after it was revealed that he had been carrying 0.24 grams of opium when detained.

As opium contains the drug morphine the matter comes under the ICC’s anti-doping policy which was tightened at the start of the year.

“Currently I'm undergoing tremendous amount of pressure at all ends and need to regain my focus,” Asif said after ending his IPL deal.

“My only purpose and wish is to play for my nation Pakistan again, and for that I need to disengage from any other cricket engagements and work towards this.”

Asif has previously been found guilty of taking nandrolone when he failed an internal PCB test in 2006.

Asif and compatriot Shoaib Akhtar were banned for one and two years respectively, although both bans were overturned on appeal.

The International Cricket Council and WADA appealed that decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, however, the case was dropped in July 2007 when CAS informed “with some considerable regret” that it had no jurisdiction to rule in the matter.