Cricket: Call to ban Warne, Waugh

AUSTRALIAN CRICKET officials have rejected a proposal from the sub-continent that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh should be banned for life after admitting they took money from an illegal bookmaker four years ago.

Mal Speed, the Australian Cricket Board chief executive officer, said the pair could not be banned because they had already been punished for their offence and the matter was officially closed.

Speed was responding to an announcement by Khalid Mahmood, the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, that his board and those of India and Sri Lanka wanted the International Cricket Council to introduce life bans for players involved in illegal betting on cricket matches.

Waugh and Warne have admitted taking the money from an Indian bookmaker during a limited-overs tournament in Sri Lanka in 1994 but deny any involvement in match-fixing.

Mahmood said the three sub-continental countries wanted the ICC to make an example of the two Australians. He said the proposal would be raised at next month's meeting of ICC executive board members in Christchurch.