PCB planning to ban Pakistan cricketers from appearing on TV
In a recent development, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is planning to ban the former Pakistan cricketers associated with the PCB and the current players to appear on TV shows. Recently, the Pakistan cricket team faced severe backlash for their lackluster performance in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2024.
Many former and current cricketers have criticized the team's performance and the players. Pakistan's players are visibly upset with the comments made by former cricketers as they feel that it creates a sense of anger among the fans.
Senior players do not want former cricketers to appear as TV experts
According to the reports in Cricket Pakistan, seniors in the Pakistan team have discussed the matter with the PCB during the Central Contract negotiations. The players have demanded that the former cricketers who are associated with the PCB along with the current players should not be allowed to appear on TV as experts.
An anonymous player mentioned the name of Ahmed Shehzad, who has been recently in the headlines for his vocal criticism of the team's performance. The player said that until Shehzad was hopeful of returning to the Pakistan team, he was cautious but as soon as he realized that there was no chance of his comeback, he started to be aggressive about the criticism of the players.
During a national TV show recently, Shehzad criticized the senior players for backing their favorite cricketers and friends rather than the deserving players. Current Pakistan ODI and Test opener Imam-Ul-Haq was also present among the panel of experts.
Shehzad, 32, is currently out of the national team's reckoning. The opening batter last played an international game in October 2019, which was a T20I against Sri Lanka at Lahore. Shehzad played 13 Tests, 81 ODIs, and 59 T20Is for Pakistan, scoring over 5000 runs. He has the record of the only T20I century scored by a Pakistani in a T20 World Cup.
The player also stated that Mohammad Hafeez also spoke against his own team on foreign media, which is not the appropriate thing to do. Hafeez served as the team director of Pakistan a few months ago.
Hafeez was recently involved in a show called 'Club Prairie Fire' on the YouTube channel, where he criticized Pakistan's disappointing run in the T20 World Cup 2024.
Many former cricketers of Pakistan slammed their team for their poor performance in the T20 World Cup 2024. Ahmed Shehzad, Basit Ali, and Wasim Akram are some of those big names.
Pakistan's performance in T20 World Cup 2024
Pakistan were eliminated from the group stage of the T20 World Cup for the first time ever. The 2009 champions never really got going as they lost their opening fixture to the USA in the Super Over.
In the next game, they lost to arch-rivals India by a narrow margin of 6 runs. These defeats severely affected the team's chances to make it to the Super 8 stage. Despite wins over Ireland and Canada in their last two group games, the Men in Green suffered an early elimination from the tournament.
