TALENTED battling stylist Marlon Samuels is now free to play cricket at all levels.

Samuels, 29, can again walk onto any field across the globe and play some of the shots that have thrilled thousands in his time of representing Jamaica and the West Indies.

The slender right-hander was banned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on May 9, 2008, after he was found guilty of breaching that organisation’s code

of conduct.

“I am ready again to play cricket,” Samuels said earlier this year.

“I have been preparing myself by training regularly and you will see more of Marlon Samuels when I return,” he said.

Always maintaining his innocence, the former Kingston College student — up to the time of his forced vacation — had played 29 Test matches with a top score of 105 and an average of 28.73, plus 107 One-Day Internationals at the better average of 30.27.

It is widely felt that despite his absence from the international cricket scene, he is still good enough to get into the West Indies team in all three approved forms of the game — Twenty20, One-Day and Test.

Samuels, knowledgeable cricket pundits have suggested, would be ideal for the No 4 batting position, which has floated across the laps of several regional batsmen, including Trinidadian Lendl Simmons, Guyanese Travis Dowlin and Narsingh Deonarine, and Windward Islander Alton Fletcher.

During the hearing in St Lucia in 2008, the ICC, acting on a recommendation by a special committee hearing the matter, found that Samuels

had irregular contact with Indian businessman Mukesh Kochchar, whom it described as a bookmaker, and brought the game into disrepute.

Samuels was accused of violating ICC rules of conduct 4 xi in “receiving money, benefit or other reward which could bring him or the game of cricket into disrepute”.

A second charge that Samuels had directly or indirectly engaged in conduct prejudicial to the interests of cricket was dismissed.

The committee comprising chairman Justice Adrian Saunders; Jamaican attorney-at-law Dr Lloyd Barnett; former West Indies captain Richie Richardson, the player’s representative; and former Guyana jurist Professor Aubrey FR Bishop found Samuels guilty, 3-1, with only Professor Bishop dissenting.

Samuels was fingered in the probe during a One-Day series in India in January 2007. The ICC said he had improper communication with Kochchar before a match at Nagpur in the same month.

He was allowed to play in the ICC World Cup hosted by the West Indies that same year, while investigations proceeded.

Among the allegations was that Samuels accepted money from Kochchar, which the player said was used to settle a credit card bill at his hotel, after his credit card had exceeded the allowed limit.

Based upon the investigations conducted by the ICC’s senior investigator of the Anti-Corruption & Security Unit, Alan Peacock, Samuels admitted that Kochchar paid the room bill for his stay at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which amounted to 50,486.70 Indian rupees, or US$1,238, after his money ran low in the Indian city.

He had stayed behind with captain Chris Gayle for a promotional shoot, but the deal fell through and Samuels, who had gone shopping the same day, had his credit card declined when he tried to pay the hotel bill.

It was then that he called Kochchar, who sent an aide, Yogesh Arora, with the money to settle the bill. The money was never repaid, although Peacock said in his statement that Samuels had offered to repay Kochchar, who declined, telling Samuels that there was no need for him to do so.

“The panel agreed that Marlon Samuels did receive money and that the circumstances could bring him or the game into disrepute. There was no proof that he provided information,” wrote the committee’s non-voting secretary Tony Deyal at the time.

Samuels was represented by veteran Jamaican Queen’s Counsels K Churchill Neita and Delano “Zack” Harrison, who argued at the hearing that Samuels was naïve, which was used against him, adding that he was a mere victim of circumstances.

Jamaican attorney Derek Jones and Alana Medford put forward the case against Samuels.