Karachi: “Nothing happens to the players, only the selectors and coaches will be fired” Mohammad Rizwan’s conversation with his teammates in the team huddle, the officials felt bad, a cricketer also informed the selectors, it was discussed in the review meeting, Shaheen Afridi was accused of not following the instructions in the match.
According to the details, due to the defeats against New Zealand and India in the Champions Trophy, the Pakistan team’s journey ended in the first round, the match with Bangladesh was washed out due to rain, and since then, the storm of criticism has been going on.
According to sources, in the recent PCB meeting, a selector told the participants that when the players gathered on the field after the defeat in the match with India, captain Mohammad Rizwan had told them not to be disappointed, winning and losing is part of the game, nothing happens to the players, only the coaches etc. will be fired.
This did not please the authorities. Interestingly, one of the players who spoke in the “team huddle” had informed the selectors. Chairman Mohsin Naqvi was also not in favor of hasty uprooting, so the jobs of the selectors and coaches were saved.
An official complained about Shaheen Shah Afridi that he did not follow the instructions given in the match. He was asked to bowl yorkers etc. but he bowled his own. He and Haris Rauf were not considered useful for ODI cricket and were limited to T20 only.
If we look at the statistics, both the senior pacers played a major role in Australia’s ODI series victory in November last year. Player of the Series Haris dismissed 10 players and Shaheen 8.
After that, in the ODI series in South Africa, Shaheen contributed to the team’s victory by taking the most wickets of both teams by taking 7 wickets, however, after 2 Champions Trophy matches in unfavorable conditions for pacers, both were declared as poor ODI bowlers and dropped, although they could have proved successful on the New Zealand pitches.
Similarly, Babar Azam was part of the last ICC T20 Team of the Year but did not get a place in his national team. These strange decisions of the selection committee are being criticized from all sides.
It should be remembered that Babar and Rizwan were dropped for playing slowly, but the new captain Salman Ali Agha has scored 50 runs in 6 T20 International matches at an average of 10 and a strike rate of 79.
