Shabbir Ahmed's action has been cleared

After serving a 1 year ban for an illegal bowling action, Shabbir Ahmed is close to returning to action. From the PCB website...

As per the preliminary report received by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) from University of Western Australia Biomechanics experts this afternoon, the bowling action of Shabbir Ahmad has been found within the legitimate parameters laid down by the International Cricket Council. The detailed report is expected after about a week's time subsequent to which the PCB will do the needful for getting Shabbir's clearance to represent Pakistan after his one-year ban finishes on 18 December, 2006.

This might have been just an afterthought to the cricinfo folks but this is actually quite a big deal. I briefly touched upon his importance prior to his departure for Australia for bowling tests.

Now that he has been cleared, he should probably make the squad for the South Africa tour. He is a talented cricketer and has a lot of potential. I hope his bowling action has improved somewhat, since it always looked a little odd to me. However, one must bear in mind that he had always been cleared scientifically. Its just that his action 'looked' strange which is why he was called a few times. I hope the umpires and referees bear this in mind.

With Shoaib and Asif out, this couldn't have come at a better time.