Former England batter Gary Ballance should be fined £8,000 and banned for eight weeks for using racist language at Yorkshire, according to the England and Wales Cricket Board. Ballance is one of six former Yorkshire players found to have use racist slurs at the club by the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) panel in March. The charges stemmed from claims made by former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq. Ballance, who retired earlier this month, admitted the charge against him.

The ECB also recommended a combination of fines, suspensions, reprimands and education courses for former England bowlers Tim Bresnan and Matthew Hoggard, former Yorkshire captain and coach Andrew Gale, former Scotland bowler John Blain and former Yorkshire all-rounder Richard Pyrah. All five did not appear before the independent CDC panel in March after withdrawing from the process and also did not provide written submissions for this hearing in London on Wednesday.

CDC panel chair Tim O'Gorman said a decision on sanctions for the six former players will not be made for "several weeks". Former England captain Michael Vaughan was cleared "on the balance of probabilities" by the panel of using racist language towards Rafiq. Sanctions against Yorkshire, who admitted four amended charges, will be discussed at a hearing in late June. The ECB said Ballance's fine should be reduced from £12,500 and the suspension reduced from 10 weeks because he admitted guilt and apologised to Rafiq.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP