Shoaib's herbal medicine to blame?

Pakistan pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar, sent home from the Champions Trophy after failing a drugs test, could have taken nandrolone inadvertently while being treated with herbal medicine, his doctor said.

"Shoaib is at the peak of his career and he is not a fool to do something that will curtail his career," doctor Tauseef Razzaq told the web site ICCChampionsTrophy.com.

"I have been treating him since the last five years and he is more like a son to me. He never hides anything from me and I can say that he can never take the banned substance deliberately," Razzaq told the web site from his Lahore home.

He said Shoaib, who along with fellow-strike bowler Mohammad Asif faces a two-year ban after testing positive for the steroid, had been taking herbal medication prescribed by a local hakim (doctor) in Pakistan.

"After undergoing surgery in Australia earlier and subsequent treatment for the stress fracture, Shoaib has been seeing a hakim in Pakistan. It is a possibility that nandrolone drug was mixed in herbal medicines that he has been taking.

"He has been tested during the ICC events and 2003 World Cup but he has never tested positive," said the doctor.

Shoaib, who has denied ever knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs, and Asif flew back from India to Lahore late on Monday after failing the dope test carried out by the Pakistan Cricket Board ahead of the tournament, which started on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Shoaib met PCB director of operations Saleem Altaf but both men declined to give details of their meeting.

"I met Shoaib this morning and we had a detailed discussion. Asif is due to meet me later in the afternoon. Everything is under control," Altaf told the Press Trust of India.

Altaf said the board was in the process of organising a tribunal to hear both players and recommend disciplinary action.

"It should be finalised later today because we want to have the hearing as soon as possible," he said.

"We have taken a strong decision to have the tests, announce their results and call these players back. We want this issue to reach its logical conclusion but the players would be given a fair chance to present their cases."

Shoaib, 31, is one of the fastest bowlers in history. He has taken 165 Test wickets and more than 200 in one-dayers since his international debut in 1997.

He has been reported for a suspect bowling action three times and dogged by fitness problems for almost a decade.

The ICC has allowed Pakistan to call up all rounder Yasir Arafat and spinner Abdul Rehman as replacements for the tournament.