The last few months have not been smooth in Pakistan cricket, and things are just getting worse with every passing day. The latest reports of their media have suggested that the national team captain Babar Azam, the wicket-keeper batter Mohammad Rizwan, and the left-arm seam bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi have been under the scanner of the board.
According to a few of the reports, all of those three could face demotion in their central contracts of 2024- ’25, which has come on the back of their poor show in the recently concluded Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, where they made a group stage exit.
After losing their opening two games against the United States of America (USA) and India, their last two wins didn’t come with a bigger margin, which resulted in failing to reach the ‘Super Eight’ stage of the tournament.
Poor relationship grows between Pakistan senior players and PCB
At the end of that tournament, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi made a bold statement about performing a major surgery on the team to make sure everything went right in the process. As a result, he dismissed the two national selectors of the selection committee- Wahab Riaz and Abdul Razzaq.
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Apart from the demotion in the central contract of the players, some reports claim a very poor relationship between the senior members of the team and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). This is because the board does not give NOCs (No Objection Certificates) to all-format players to take part in foreign leagues across the world.
In the contract they signed, the players were given the chance to take part in two overseas leagues in a year, but keeping in mind a long home season, including the upcoming edition of the Champions Trophy, the board has denied permission to the players and asked them to rest and get freshen up.
The board has already refused to offer the NOC to Naseem Shah, who was due to play for the Birmingham Phoenix in the upcoming season of ‘The Hundred.’ The three senior members of the team- Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan, and captain Babar Azam too could end up missing their Global T20 league in Canada. These refusals have made a collision course between the players and the board.
Pakistan will be in action next during the two-match home Test series against Bangladesh side, which starts on August 21 and is also a part of the ongoing third edition of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC).
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After that, they will face England in a three-match Test series in October, before traveling to Australia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa for a limited-over series. Later, Pakistan will host the West Indies and feature in a home tri-series involving New Zealand and the Proteas. Then there is the Champions Trophy, followed by the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
Even though Shan Masood is going to continue as the captain of the longest format of the team, the board is yet to take a call on whether they will continue with Babar Azam as the white-ball captain, who has two back-to-back poor ICC tournaments in the ODI and T20 World Cup.