LAHORE: Although retired Younis Khan has announced that he won’t be attending the farewell function being held in honour of three former Pakistan captains here on Thursday, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) still held hopes the World Twenty20-winning skipper attend.

Well-informed sources told Dawn that the PCB had made contacts with Younis twice but he had refused the invitation because he felt unhappy over the decision of holding the function after almost four months since retired from international cricket.

Younis and Misbah-ul-Haq both announced their retirement from Test cricket together after playing the last Test against the West Indies on May 14.

When the PCB made the announcement for their farewell, Shahid Afridi was also willing to attend the function after registering similar complaints with the board.

But later PCB chairman Najam Sethi contacted Afridi, who gave his consent for the function.

Misbah, meanwhile, accepted the invitation without any complaint.

“We are hoping that all the three great cricketers will attend the function to further grace the occasion of the Independence Cup,” Sethi said. “We wanted to hold the function during an international series and now it is a perfect time to honour the great retired captains when 14 world-class players will be in Lahore.”

About the invitation extended to 18 former Test players, including cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, Sethi said the PCB extended invitations to all cricketers.

He said the invitation had also been given to prominent former cricketers like Javed Miandad, Iqbal Qasim, Wasim Bari, Abdul Qadir, Shoaib Mohammad, Rashid Latif and Moin Khan among others.

Sethi said when the foreign cricketers arrived in Lahore in the early hours of Monday for a noble cause hopefully former cricketers would also come to watch the matches to show solidarity with Pakistan cricket.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2017