Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi force PCB to ban Pakistan players from Social Media live streams

In a recent development, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is looking to implement a strict policy against its centrally contracted players from doing Q&A sessions on their respective X (formerly Twitter) handles. This move from the apex Pakistani board comes after star batter Babar Azam and T20I captain Shaheen Afridi were involved in a session of this sort.

The PCB reportedly noticed the activities of their senior players and felt that it would not set the right example for the young generations of cricketers to come. This is quite an uncanny decision from the cricket board, which is more often than not in the news for all the wrong reasons and rarely for the good reasons.

Their presidents change more than India’s fortunes during ICC events and it is not even a secret. Their internal issues are almost reflected in the performances of their players which have been poor for the last 1 year or so.

The Green army has struggled to win series out of Pakistan, barring Zimbabwe and other minnow oppositions. Their most recent challenge on foreign soil arrived in the form of back-to-back series losses in Australia and New Zealand last month.

Pakistan first arrived at the Land down under for a 3-match Test series right after their humiliating group stage exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India which also saw Babar Azam step down from all-format captaincy. The PCB appointed Shan Masood as the new Test captain while Shaheen Afridi took over the reins of the T20I team.

They would first endure a whitewash from Australia in the Benaud-Qadir trophy 3-match Test series before extending their losing run against New Zealand in a 5-match T20I series. The Kiwis had given them an equal amount of tough time as the Aussies did, winning the first four T20Is before letting Pakistan win the 5th one and save themselves from embarrassment.

Now with some of the players featuring in franchise leagues and interacting with fans through Q&A sessions on X, the PCB sees issues in there too.

PCB To Start Discussions With Player Agents On Stringent

One of the main concerns of PCB behind imposing strict social media regulations on national players is that they do not want the players to get into any type of controversy. And that is why, the cricket board has decided to implement certain norms that will restrict Q&A sessions from taking place.

The board has also started negotiations with players and their agents on this matter. They were prompted to do so after star bowler Shaheen Afridi answered a question related to the availability of left-arm pacer Mohammad Amir for the upcoming T20 World Cup in June to which Afridi responded that he will ask Amir regarding this.

It is interesting to note that this development has come days after interim Punjab CM Mohsin Naqvi was elected to take over as the new PCB chairman on a 3-year deal, replacing interim chair Zaka Ashraf.