20 Aug 2011

Malik cleared of allegations

9:02 am on 20 August 2011

The Pakistan Cricket Board has cleared former captain Shoaib Malik over allegations of illegal earnings, paving his way for a return to international cricket.

The 29-year-old Malik has not been selected for Pakistan since last summer's tour of England after he failed to account for money held in an overseas bank account before an integrity committee of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

The committee had been formed on the directive of the International Cricket Council (ICC) to purge Pakistan cricket of corruption in the wake of a fixing scandal during team's tour to England last year.

The spot-fixing case ended in lengthy bans on former Test captain Salman Butt and pacemen Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer.

Malik appeared before the committee on Tuesday and provided documents to justify the amount in his account.

The committee, chaired by PCB chairman Ijaz Butt on Friday announced Malik was cleared after a thorough investigation.

The clearance means that Malik is likely to be included in the squad for the tour of Zimbabwe starting later this month.

He was already included in the reserve players subject to clearance for the tour in which Pakistan play one Test, three one-dayers and two Twenty20 matches.