The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) has slapped a five-year ban on Pakistan's Usman Khan for "breaching the obligations" he owed to the board and has been barred from participating in tournaments like the ILT20 (International League T20), the Abu Dhabi T10 or any other tournament sanctioned by the board.
The board has accused Usman of misrepresenting his intentions "about his decision to play for the UAE team".
The board revealed that it carried out a detailed investigation and concluded that Usman was not willing to complete the eligibility criteria to represent UAE - something which the batter was under an obligation to do.
"After a detailed investigation, Usman was found to have misrepresented to ECB about his decision to play for the UAE team and has used the opportunities and development provided by the ECB to him to seek out other prospects and it was evident that he was no longer wanting to play for ECB nor complete the eligibility criteria which he was under an obligation to do," ECB's release on the matter read.
"Usman participated in the ECB Sanctioned International League T20 Season 2 earlier this year in the UAE Category as a local player. The ECB also entered into an ECB Employment Contract with Usman for a period of one year. This was done to give him security and allow him to fulfil his eligibility criteria that would allow him to represent UAE in international cricket," the release read further.
Notably, Usman had a dream season in the PSL recently while playing for Multan Sultans. The 28-year-old aggregated 430 runs to finish as the second-leading run-getter during PSL 9 behind Babar Azam (569 runs).
What stood out about his dream run was that while Babar played 11 games to score the amount of runs he did, Usman just played seven games.
He hit two out of four centuries that the ninth PSL season witnessed and batted at a strike rate of 164.12 - more than any other batter among the top ten run-accumulators of the season. As per reports, the PCB might name him in the squad for the upcoming five-match series against New Zealand on home soil.
