LAHORE: Pakistan Test and one-day skipper Misbah-ul-Haq and newly appointed T20 captain Shahid Afridi emerged in contrasting styles from the fitness tests conducted by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) early this month.

Misbah, 40, was named in the list of five cricketers who improved their fitness level to the desired standards and are now in line to receive a bonus each for their effort. On the other hand the T20 skipper Afridi was named among the 11 players who were found below the required fitness level set by the PCB and will now pay a hefty fine of 25 per cent from their remunerations in the central contracts respectively.

Among the 28 players who were tested for fitness, 12 maintained their fitness level including Younis Khan who had topped the list of players in the tests conducted early this year.

Misbah, five others to get bonus for being ‘super-fit’

While Misbah will receive 10 per cent bonus along with opener Ahmad Shahzad and all-rounder Bilalwal Bhatti, other super-fit players including Shan Masood and Umar Amin will get a bonus of 17.5 per cent each.

It may be mentioned that the entire process of conducting the tests of 28 cricketers was held at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Lahore where media was not allowed any access. Moreover, no official announcement has been made before the media to inform it about the details of the fitness level tests conducted this month.

According to details obtained by Dawn, the eleven players who will pay the penalty for not measuring up to the fitness levels set by PCB include Khurram Manzoor, Sarfraz Ahmed, Abdul Rehman, Haris Sohail, Sohaib Maqsood, Mohammad Irfan, Sharjeel Khan, Umar Akmal, Mohammad Talha, Raza Hassan, Zulfiqar Babar and Shahid Afridi.

The eleven players who maintained their fitness level are Azhar Ali, Umar Gul, Ehsan Adil, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Hafeez, Rahat Ali, Adnan Akmal, Asad Shafiq, Younis Khan, Fawad Alam, Anwar Ali.

And those who improved their levels of fitness are Shan Masood, Umar Amin, Misbah-ul-Haq, Ahmed Shahzad and Bilawal Bhatti. Meanwhile, Nasir Jamshed, Wahab Riaz and Saeed Ajmal have yet to appear in the fitness tests as they were busy with personal enga­g­e­ments at the time of the tests.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2014