LONDON (Reuters)
Pakistan pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar will not be treated as a special case after being reported for a suspect bowling action at a recent tournament, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has said.

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) director Brigadier Munawar Rana had sent a personal letter to the ICC asking for any inquiry into Shoaib's bowling action to be dealt with by a special sub-committee of the organisation's cricket committee.

But ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed's reply says: "Having discussed your request with the ICC President, I am unable to agree to treat this as a special case outside the carefully established process to deal with matters of this kind." Speed's letter was made public on the PCB's website.

Shoaib, 26, was reported for the third time since December 1999 after the recent triangular tournament in Sharjah.

Rana told Reuters earlier this week that the problem for Shoaib, one of the world's fastest bowlers known as the "Rawalpindi Express", lies in his "peculiar physiology".

He said Shoaib had been put through stage one of the ICC bowling action review process and experts had declared that he did not throw the ball but had a physiological problem of hyper-mobility in the joints of his bowling arm.

But Speed's letter emphasised that the original ICC process for dealing with bowlers with suspect actions was changed - largely because the PCB was unhappy with it - after Shoaib was first reported and suspended in Australia in 1999.

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