Ramnaresh Sarwan and Glenn McGrath, who were not penalised after the St John’s incident

Islamabad: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief executive Rameez Raja criticised ICC’s decision to penalise fast bowler Shoaib Akthar and accused the world body of adopting double standards in interpretation of rules for different cricketers.

“I do not want to defend Shoaib’s acts because his action was discouraging to Pakistan cricket. He has been reprimanded and he has shown his remorse,” Rameez said in a statement.

But he feels while Shoaib was punished on the basis of television replays, no action was taken on the sledging incident involving Australian pace bowler Glenn McGrath and West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan.

“The recent on-field skirmishes in the West Indies have failed to stimulate the ICC. While the ball-tampering episode of Shoaib has been given credence even though proper procedures were not followed,” he charged.

He said like ball-tampering, sledging constituted a Level 2 offence. “Both rules are to be interpreted by the Match Referee. In the West Indies, there was an undeniable case of a Level 2 offence. But no action was taken.”

In the case of Shoaib, Match Referee G. R. Viswanath had relied heavily on television pictures whereas in the case of the McGrath-Sarwan tiff, TV evidence of “misdemeanour” was deemed not fit for reporting a level 2 offence, he said.

“Ball tampering is an offence which invokes certain actions which are: a) change of the ball immediately, b) five penalty runs to the opponent. In Shoaib, none of these actions were invoked. In fact, the ball was changed in the 43rd over whereas the report was made in the 29th,” Rameez said. Also the ball was changed finally because it was discoloured and not because it was tampered with, he added. (PTI)