Former Pakistan legspinner 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 (ICC), for encouraging a teammate to bowl badly on purpose as part of a spot-fixing scam.
The ECB had charged Kaneria, then playing for Essex, with inducing Mervyn Westfield to deliberately concede runs in a Essex-Durham county match on September 5, 2009.
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 STG200,000 ($A365,000).
But Judge Nicholas Hamblen said on Tuesday the appeal panel had not exceeded its powers and there were no grounds for suggesting an error of law had been made.
Kaneria was not present at Tuesday’s hearing, with a lawyer telling the court he was in Pakistan.
The ECB took disciplinary action against Kaneria after former fast bowler Westfield agreed to spot fix and was jailed, the court heard.
Westfield revealed he’d bowled “deliberately badly” after agreeing to concede 12 runs in his first over for “financial reward”, Hamblen told the court.
“In the event he conceded 10 runs, including a wide, and received 6000,” the judge added.
“For this spot fixing, he was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment in February 2012.”
The ECB alleged Kaneria had induced Westfield to under-perform and had brought cricket into disrepute.
Kaneria denied both allegations.
In April, Pakistani cricket authorities launched an investigation after Kaneria appeared to contravene the terms of the global ban imposed by the ICC by playing in a series of Twenty20 games in Houston, Texas.
Three other Pakistani players – Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer – are serving five-year bans as a result of a separate 2010 spot-fixing case.
Asif was also stopped from playing an exhibition match in Norway last year.