Islamabad: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has formed a three-member tribunal to hear fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar’s appeal against a five-year ban.

PCB spokesman Mansoor Sohail on Monday said a retired judge would head the tribunal, which also includes former Test cricketer Haseeb Ahsan and Salman Taseer, an ex-politician.

The tribunal could begin hearing the appeal as early as Tuesday, Sohail said.

The temperamental speedster filed an appeal with the PCB last Friday, asking it to reverse the decision to ban him from all domestic and international matches for repeatedly breaching the players’ code of conduct.

The PCB has also prepared a $3.2 million defamation action against Shoaib after the paceman accused board chairman Nasim Ashraf of victimising him and trying to extort money from him and other members of the national team.

Shoaib, 32, was once cricket’s fastest bowler. But injuries, as well as a series of disciplinary incidents, have restricted him to 46 Tests. The ban, if upheld, could end his career.

Shoaib has said that if this appeal fails, he will also go through the courts in a bid to get the ban overturned.

Shoaib’s lawyers Mohammed Ali Lashari and Mohammed Azim Danyal met PCB’s chief operating officer Shafqat Naghmi and submitted the appeal to him last Friday.

“The ban is illegal and unconstitutional and we intend to have it reviewed and removed,” Danyal had said at the Gaddafi.

Shoaib himself showed up at the end of the meeting and said he had appealed as per the procedures of the PCB.

“I came to submit the appeal according to the procedures of the PCB and I have done that. I respect the law, PCB and the chairman,” he had told the reporters.

He also asked his fans to “be patient till the PCB decides on the appeal” and added that “we need to learn to respect the law.”

He also thanked all those — including former captain Imran Khan, Tauqir Zia and Haneef Abbasi — who have backed him in the whole episode.

Naghmi said that as per the procedures of the board, PCB chairman Ashraf will head the appellate committee to hear the appeal.

“It is Shoaib’s right to appeal against the ban. And we are now bound to give him another fair hearing,” Naghmi said.