Kaneria asked to produce tapes of inquiry

Danish Kaneria, the Pakistan legspinner, will have to wait at least another month to gain clearance to play for Pakistan. The Sindh High Court has adjourned his case against the PCB until September 27 after the board asked Kaneria to produce tapes of the police inquiry he faced in the UK. Kaneria had been questioned in a case involving spot-fixing allegations during a Pro40 match for his county Essex.

During the previous hearing of the case, on July 26, Kaneria had been asked to produce transcripts of the investigation on August 18. According to PCB lawyer Taffazul Rizvi, Kaneria's lawyers admitted tapes of the questioning exist and those will now be produced before the court.

"For the first time Kaneria's counsel has accepted that the tapes exist but they have not submitted these before the court; so we have to contact our lawyer in England and try to bring those tapes here," Rizvi told AFP.

Though Kaneria was not charged in the spot-fixing case, in which his Essex team-mate Mervyn Westfield faced criminal proceedings, he has not been cleared to play for Pakistan since the incident. He provided the PCB's integrity committee with various financial records and documents, including a letter from Essex that confirmed he was not charged with any wrongdoing in England. Having failed to satisfy the committee, he filed a petition at the Sindh High Court on July 2.

Kaneria will now have to wait to obtain the tapes of his questioning, which his lawyer Mohammad Farogh Naseem said were in the UK with Kaneria's British lawyer Steve Haurigan.

The integrity committee had asked Kaneria to produce transcripts of the investigation before the case began but his lawyers had maintained it was not possible as the transcripts were still part of an ongoing investigation in the UK.

Kaneria met the PCB's integrity committee again, though there was no clear result from that meeting. He now has no hopes of playing in Zimbabwe. With 261 wickets, he is Pakistan's most-prolific spinner in Tests, but has not played one for nearly a year.

"I am doing my best to clear my name but with the adjournment I have lost my chance to play against Zimbabwe next month," Kaneria told AFP. "I have not lost heart and will do everything to revive my career."