Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria lost his legal challenge to a life ban imposed by English cricket chiefs at London’s High Court on Tuesday.
Kaneria was barred by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), in a ban subsequently applied globally by the International Cricket Council, for encouraging a team-mate to bowl badly on purpose as part of a spot-fixing scam.
The ECB had charged Kaneria, then playing for Essex, with inducing team-mate Mervyn Westfield to “deliberately concede” runs in an English county limited overs match against Durham in 2010.
An ECB disciplinary panel found the charges had been proved after a hearing in 2012 and the decision to impose a life ban was upheld by a disciplinary panel set up under board regulations in 2013.
Kaneria took legal action, claiming the panel had been wrong both to uphold the life ban and to order him to pay ECB legal costs of £200,000 ($339,000).
But Judge Nicholas Hamblen said Tuesday the appeal panel had not exceeded its powers and that there were no grounds for suggesting an error of law had been made.
ECB chief executive David Collier welcomed the court ruling and urged Kaneria to co-operate with cricket authorities in their bid to root out corruption from the sport.
“This case has now been considered by two different independent panels and an experienced High Court judge,” Collier said in an ECB statement.
“Once again, in the light of Justice Hamblen’s ruling today (Tuesday) and the overwhelming weight of evidence laid against him, we would urge Mr Kaneria to publicly admit his guilt in this matter, apologise for betraying the trust of his former team-mates at Essex and ask him to co-operate with both ECB and ICC in their ongoing efforts to root out corrupt activities within cricket.”
Kaneria was not present at Tuesday’s hearing, with a lawyer telling the court he was in Pakistan.