Date set for Asif drugs hearing

Pakistan fast bowler Mohammad Asif will appear before an Indian Premier League drugs panel on 11 October for a hearing on his doping case.

Asif tested positive for banned drug nandrolone during the IPL semi-finals played in May this year.

A test on his second sample, carried out under World Anti-doping Agency conditions in Switzerland, also produced an adverse finding.

Asif, 25, who has played 11 Tests, will discover his fate in Mumbai.

The IPL had originally set 30 August as the date for the hearing, but it was postponed on request from Asif and his lawyer.

However, Asif's lawyer Shahid Karim suggested the new date was not ideal.

He told Geo TV: "We had asked for a date in the second week of September, but we have been given a date only now."

The IPL drugs panel consists of former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, lawyer Shirish Gupte and doctor Ravi Bapat.

Asif could be banned for a minimum of two years if found guilty. The suspension would also keep him out of international cricket with the Pakistan Cricket Board already saying it is prepared to endorse the ban.

One major plank of Asif's defence will be that the quantity of nandrolone present in the two samples varied - the second providing a concentration of 5.4 nanograms per millilitre of urine compared with 6.2 nanograms in the first.

In 2006, he and fellow Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar were found to have taken nandrolone after failing internal PCB drug tests.

The pair were banned for one and two years respectively, before the ruling was overturned on appeal.

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