October 13, 2006	Friday	Ramazan 19, 1427

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KARACHI, Oct 12: The former chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board, Shaharyar M. Khan, has clarified that Younis Khan, captain-designate of Pakistan team for Champions Trophy, was not told to ‘wait needlessly outside the chairman’s office at Qadhafi Stadium’ as pointed out by columnist Saad Shafqat in the newspaper’s edition on Wednesday, Oct 11.

In a rejoinder on Thursday, Shaharyar said: “On Oct 6 I had scheduled an appointment at 10.30am with some other people. At the appointed time I asked my secretary if the party had arrived and on being told that they were waiting, I called them in.“Before they could enter my room, my peon told me that Younis wanted to see me. This was normal as team members often came to my office without previous appointments and if I was free, I met them immediately. But if I had an appointment or meeting, I would politely ask them to wait till I was free.

“Inzamam-ul-Haq and Bob Woolmer – my most frequent unscheduled visitors – have often waited for over an hour for me to be free.

“In this case, I knew that my 10.30 appointment would not take more than few minutes, so I sent a message to Younis asking him to wait five minutes when I would receive him.

“After my scheduled visitors left not more than five minutes later, I sent a messenger to call in Younis. But he did not return to my room and thundered into the waiting press conference to announce his resignation.”