Kaneria stopped from going to Dubai over spot-fixing charges

In a late night development, Kaneria was stopped by the Pakistan Cricket Board from going to Dubai to join the national team for the two Test matches against South Africa starting November 12.

Kaneria was scheduled to leave with Muhammad Sami from Karachi as were Muhammad Yousuf, Taufiq Umar and Azhar Ali from Lahore in the early hours of Sunday.

But as he was preparing to leave for the airport, Kaneria was told by the PCB to remain in Karachi till further orders.

Zakir Khan, the director of cricket operations in the board, today said the board had not given clearance to Kaneria for the Test series. He refused to say anything more on the issue.

A similar response came from chief selector Mohsin Khan who said he couldn't select any player in the team who was not cleared by the board.

"Under the new regulations only those players can play who are given clearance by the board and apparently in Kaneria's case he has been stopped from playing for Pakistan at this point," Mohsin said.

A well-placed source in the board told PTI that infact it was the ICC that had told the PCB not to play Kaneria at this time in the coming series.

"Apparently the ICC is still not satisfied with the conduct of Kaneria because of the criminal investigation that was conducted against him this year by the Essex police," the source said.