Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi summoned white-ball head coach Gary Kirsten to talk about the team’s future according to Geo News. The meeting is being held in light of the recent criticism by some sections of fans and former Pakistan cricketers on the Men in Green’s performance in the T20 World Cup. In the marquee event, the Babar Azam-led side had a woeful campaign that saw them crash out in the group stage itself.

Last week, ESPNcricinfo reported that white-ball head coach Gary Kirsten and selector Wahab Riaz submitted their tour reports to Naqvi.

Sources informed Geo News that Naqvi would review the report that Kirsten submitted. The report highlights players’ discipline, game awareness, fitness and many other things.

It was also reported that the most important part of the discussion would be the future of Babar Azam as the white-ball skipper of the Pakistan team.

After Pakistan’s latest setback, Babar’s white-ball captaincy also became a subject of scrutiny. Former Pakistan cricketers criticised Babar’s leadership and captaincy skills.

Last Thursday, Naqvi shed light on Babar’s future as Pakistan’s captain and stated that no decision had been made on him.

“There is, however, no decision taken so far related to Babar Azam,” the top cricket official, who also serves as the country’s interior minister, told reporters in Lahore, as quoted from Geo News.”I’m only speaking to those former cricketers who are interested in the betterment of Pakistan cricket,” he added.

Last week, Geo News also reported that around 30-35 international cricketers will meet the PCB chairman on Monday. They will give their feedback and suggestions to improve the domestic cricket structure in the country.

Pakistan kicked off their T20 World Cup campaign with a Super Over defeat against the co-hosts, the USA. Pakistan’s arch-rival, India, further increased their woes by getting the better of them in the low-scoring thriller, where they failed to chase down the 120-run target.

Pakistan returned to winning ways by securing victories in their remaining two games against Canada and Ireland. However, their late surge wasn’t enough to seal their tickets for the Super 8 stage in the Caribbean.

As there is a huge gap in Pakistan’s next white-ball series, Pakistan management will have ample time to make the necessary changes for the betterment of their cricket.

After the T20 World Cup heartbreak, Pakistan will play their next white-ball series against Australia in November.

According to a report, India are unlikely to travel to Pakistan for Champions Trophy 2025.© AFP

File photo of Rohit Sharma (left) and Babar Azam.© AFP

File photo of Pakistan skipper Babar Azam© X (formerly Twitter)

File image of Babar Azam (right) and Shaheen Shah Afridi.© AFP

A report in the ‘Jang’ newspaper stated that some Pakistani players accepted appearance fee as low as USD 2500 per person to attend a meet-and-greet function in Dallas on the sidelines of the T20 World Cup 2024. It also stated that another event, ‘A night with stars’, was called off because of differences in payments made to captain, Babar Azam and other players. All these revelations are going to be analysed during the postmortem of the league-stage exit, following losses to tournament debutants USA and arch-rivals India.

While the board has had four chairmen since December 2022, none of the senior management level officials have been moved or terminated.

“It is now becoming clear that if the players are today an indisciplined and careless lot, the blame for this falls on some of the senior management officials who have been patronising them in many ways including in the finalisation of the central contracts last year,” the source added.

Adding to the drama is the speculation that the team is a divided house with Babar and pacer spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi at loggerheads over captaincy.

Pakistan’s shambolic T20 World Cup campaign in the USA is all set to trigger a churning in the country’s cricket board and lead to the formulation of a code of conduct for players, who are drawing criticism for taking their families along and making paid appearances at promotional events during the tournament.

A reliable source in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) confirmed that Chairman Mohsin Naqvi is livid with the performance of some senior officials and held them responsible for the indiscipline prevailing in the team, which could not go beyond the league stage.

“You can expect the PCB to lose senior management level officials and also enforce some strict policies for the players in future,” the source said.

He said a policy decision on players not being allowed to have their families in ICC and other major events is also expected to be announced soon by the PCB as part of its clean-up operation.

“The fact that so many players not only took their wives and children to the World Cup even had their parents, brothers etc staying in the team hotel has left the chairman unhappy,” the source said.

He said when inquiries were made as to who gave permission for players to take all their family members on tour, it came to light that some senior officials in the board were behind this decision.

“Some of these officials are not professionals but fans of the players and have given them lot of concessions which eventually led to the World Cup debacle,” the source said.

He said the PCB chief had now asked for a performance assessment report from all senior management level officials as he is also unhappy with the progress of work for the ICC Champions Trophy scheduled early next year in Pakistan.

T20 World Cup: Pakistan star Haris Rauf’s altercation with some fans went viral© Twitter

Pakistan’s disastrous T20 World Cup campaign in the USA has expectedly triggered a backlash against the players, who are being criticised for taking their families along, even as their beleaguered cricket board mulled invoking a new defamation law to tackle “unsubstantiated claims and reports”. According to a local media report, apart from the nearly 34 players, support staff, and officials who were part of the national squad in the USA, the team hotel was teeming with around 26 to 28 family members of the players.

These included their wives, children, parents and even siblings in some cases. Pakistan were eliminated after losing to India and debutants USA in their group league stage matches held in New York.

The report said players like Babar Azam, Haris Rauf, Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman, and Muhammad Amir were among those who had family members travelling with them.

Babar, who is not married, had his father, mother and brothers staying in the team hotel.

“The extra expenses incurred on having families is obviously paid by players but having family members around does hit the focus of the players,” another report said.

“Some 60 rooms were booked where the team stayed to accommodate the other people travelling with the team. The environment was a family one with take-away dinners and outings being the norm for some players,” one report said.

Former Test wicketkeeper, Atiq uz Zaman said he could understand the players’ need to have their families with them on low-profile or bilateral tours.

But for a major event like the World Cup, the PCB should not have allowed such a gathering.

“In a World Cup, no families should have been allowed as the players needed to focus on their cricket. When you have families with you then a player’s attention and time is diverted from cricket,” Zaman said.

Amir had also taken his personal trainer to the World Cup at his own expense despite the team having a foreign trainer, strength conditioning coach, physiotherapist and doctor.

One report said that during training sessions, the left-arm pacer trained away from others, having taken permission from the board for this.

PCB mulls legal action against unverified reports

The Pakistan Cricket Board will be using a new defamation law by the Punjab government to go after digital or mainstream media who insinuate corruption by Pakistani players during the World Cup or make very personal remarks about them.

A reliable source in the PCB said that the Board’s legal department has already started working on possible notices under the new defamation law.

“These people will be asked to prove their allegations or face action under the new defamation law,” he said.

The Punjab assembly recently passed the bill related to digital media and defamation laws under which any digital journalist or media personality making unsubstantiated allegations or personal attacks on a public figure which put him in danger of public backlash can face a heavy fine and also time in jail if found guilty.

The law also states a decision has to come in six months and cases should not linger on.

This is after skipper Babar Azam was accused of accepting an expensive car as gift by YouTuber.

Pakistan’s earlier-than-expected elimination from the ongoing T20 World Cup has paved the way for different conspiracy theories in the local media. From groupism to rift withing the senion members of the team, the local media has presented several concepts to suggest the reason behind the team’s disaster show in the Americas. While majority of the former players have entirely put the blame of the players, ex-captain Rashid Latif has time and time again highlighted the role PCB has played in the team’s downfall.

Earlier this week, Pakistan pacer Haris Rauf was confronted by a man on the streets of Miami, Florida. In a viral video, Haris had lost his cool at the man, who must’ve said something derrogatory to the player.

Angered by the action of the man, Haris was seen chasing the person to beat him. However, the people around them, including Haris’ wife, stopped the two doing anything stupid.

PCB also reacted to the whole episode, saying that they would take legal action against the man if he refuses to apologise to Haris.

Over the past few days, there have been rumours of spot fixing circulating in the media. Latif has now targetted the PCB for not addressing the match-fixing allegations that have been doing rounds on social media.

“Pakistan’s exclusion from the World Cup has caused the biggest loss to our electronic media, which includes news channels and sports broadcasters (broadcasting rights). Those who have the broadcast rights to show the match are expected to lose 30% to 35%. The ratings of the channels are also surprisingly low as the Pakistan team is back home and the news channels and sports channels are blaming the players and the team to keep themselves alive and the cricket board is a silent spectator. While in Haris Rauf’s case, Chairman PCB’s X message came immediately, but where a serious allegation like match-fixing was made, the entire legal department is silent and coincidentally, PCB’s CEO is a lawyer by profession. People are understanding that maybe it did not change the direction of the cannons to save itself?,” Latif wrote in a post on X.

pic.twitter.com/3MLSEcuqM8

— Rashid Latif | (@iRashidLatif68) June 21, 2024

Successive poor shows in the ODI World Cup 2023 and the 2024 T20 World Cup, has put a big question mark on the Babar Azam-led Pakistan. 

This time around the reaction to the exit is stronger because Pakistan started the tournament with an unexpected loss against debutants USA. 

Then they loss against India. The two losses proved to be Pakistan’s nemesis as they were knocked out despite winning their last two encounters.  

In the aftermath of Pakistan’s disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, significant changes loom for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) selection committee. A comprehensive review is set to uncover what went wrong for the team, but streamlining the selection committee’s operations has emerged as a top priority, according to a news report on Thursday. According to ESPNcricinfo the seven-member committee, currently without an official head, is likely to be downsized, and the PCB may abandon its recent experiment of a leaderless selection process.

Just three months ago, the current selection committee was formed, with Wahab Riaz being stripped of his role as chair but remaining a member. The committee functioned based on equal votes and majority decisions. However, this setup is now under scrutiny, with frustrations mounting within the PCB, including from Wahab himself, over the public perception that he unofficially leads the committee and bears the brunt of criticism.

As a result, Wahab’s complete departure from the committee is a strong possibility, as PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi seeks to demonstrate that no one is immune to repercussions.

The report also said that, despite the turmoil, a decision on Babar Azam’s captaincy is not immediately anticipated. Although emotions have run high following Pakistan’s World Cup exit, the urgency to address the captaincy issue is less pressing given Pakistan’s next white-ball match is not until November.

The review process will incorporate feedback from several management members who accompanied the team, with head coach Gary Kirsten’s input holding significant weight. Kirsten, appointed in April after an exhaustive search, has reportedly expressed concerns about the team’s lack of unity. While the exact nature of his remarks remains uncertain, it is clear that a frank and robust exchange of views took place, which will likely influence his report to the PCB.

Furthermore, the forthcoming revisions to players’ central contracts, set to expire on June 30, may signal additional changes to the national setup. Although a landmark three-year contract agreement was reached last year, individual players’ positions can be adjusted based on performance.

Currently, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, and Shaheen Shah Afridi hold the highest category contracts, but their standings could be reevaluated in light of recent performances.