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Dhaka - Bangladesh's cricket authorities
Saturday partially lifted the ban on former captain Mohammad Ashraful, allowing
him to play in selected domestic competitions, officials said.
Ashraful was initially banned for eight
years in 2014 after he tearfully confessed on national television to helping
fix matches in the scandal-hit Bangladesh Premier League.
The Twenty20 tournament was eventually left
suspended in the wake of the match-fixing controversy before being resumed in
2015 with six new franchises.
A local appeal panel in September 2014 cut
Ashraful's ban to five years including a two-year suspended sentence, meaning
he can return to competitive cricket from August 2016.
The BCB and the ICC had lodged an appeal to
the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland against his reduced
ban in October 2014, but later withdrew it.
"Mr Ashraful is eligible to play
domestic cricket from the 13th August 2016. However, he will be ineligible to
play International cricket or the BPL (until 2018)," said Yasin Patel, a
British lawyer who represented Ashraful during the trial.
BCB chief executive officer Nizamuddin
Chowdhury said they were now waiting for an ICC response to determine, which
domestic competitions Ashraful will be allowed to play.
"Ashraful's ban will be lifted on
August 13," Chowdhury said on Friday. "We have now asked for a clarification
from the ICC, clearly specifying which competitions he will be allowed to
play."
An ICC spokesperson declined to make any
comment.
Ashraful, Test cricket's youngest
century-maker, made his debut at the national level at the age of 17.
He has played 61 Tests, 177 one-day
internationals and 23 T20 international matches.
ICC anti-corruption investigators discovered the fixing scam after being asked by Bangladesh authorities to monitor the lucrative T20 tournament.
