On 1 March 2007, Akhtar and Asif were ruled out of the Pakistani squad for the 2007 Cricket World Cup by team officials, minutes before the squad was to depart for the West Indies. The team management along with the PCB said their injuries were too severe to risk taking them to the Caribbean. Since neither of the two had been declared fit they had not undergone official doping tests. However, Pakistani officials told cricket sources off the record that the team management had feared that they would fail the doping tests as it was likely traces of Nandrolone were still present in their system.