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The Pakistan Cricket Board has fined fast bowler Mohammad Asif rupees 1 million ($12,250) for possessing a small amount of opium in Dubai last year, a PCB official said Thursday.

"Asif has accepted our decision and he feels he had made a mistake," chief of the inquiry committee Wasim Bari told the AP.

The cricket board constituted a committee, headed by Bari, to look into Asif's 19-day detention in Dubai last June when 0.24 grams of opium was found in his wallet at the airport.

Dubai elected not to pursue charges against him despite the presence of the drug. Asif claimed he did not know there was opium in what he claimed was a herbal remedy used to boost energy.

Bari said Asif failed to prove in front of the inquiry that he was not deported from the United Arab Emirates.

"It was our committee's unanimous decision that Asif should be handed a financial penalty as we took a number of things into account before deciding the penalty," Bari said.

In another incident, Asif was banned for a year by the Indian Premier League in September when he tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone during the tournament.

His suspension ends before this year's Champions Trophy in South Africa and the PCB has said it will consider the 26-year-old fast bowler for selection when the ban expires.

In 2006, Asif was suspended for a year by the PCB after testing positive for nandrolone, but the ban was overturned on appeal.

The fast bowler has taken 51 wickets from 11 tests, and claimed 36 dismissals from 31 one-day internationals.