LAHORE, June 30: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf on Saturday fired a warning to all members of the Pakistan team, asking them to perform to the best of their abilities in the remaining Tests against Sri Lanka or get prepared to be sent back home.
Talking to reporters at the Allama Iqbal International Airport here on Saturday after returning from Malaysia, where he attended a series of ICC and ACC meetings, Zaka said: “Every member of the national team is to perform, otherwise he has no place in the team and will be sent back home.”
Zaka also defended stand-in captain Mohammad Hafeez, saying his performance as a leader was not bad and added that everything was not captain’s responsibility and all the players needed to perform well to earn better results.
Pakistan team has been struggling on the current tour of Sri Lanka, having lost the one-day series 3-1 after drawing the T20 series 1-1. They have continued to fare poorly in the Tests as well, losing the first one at Galle by a big margin of 209 runs.
Commenting on the recent statement of tainted former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, Zaka said that the ex-opener had the right to demand a judicial probe in the country into the allegations of spot-fixing levelled against him and two other cricketers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir in the Lord’s Test in 2010, but the PCB had no role to play in the matter.
He also reiterated that the PCB had no authority to ask the ICC to waive off the ban on Aamir and to allow him to play international cricket. However, he said, the ICC itself was in a position to take any decision in this regard.
About the current decision of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to ban leg-spinner Danish Kaneria for life, Zaka said the PCB had called the spinner several times to appear before its integrity committee with his evidence to get himself cleared from all allegations, but he failed to turn up and now the ECB had announced the final decision against him.
Referring to the ICC meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Zaka claimed that all the members of the ICC had supported an early revival of international cricket in Pakistan.
He also said that Bangladesh cricket team’s tour to Pakistan was still in the pipeline as the head of the Bangladesh Cricket Board, Mustafa Kamal, was hopeful for a favourable decision from Dhaka High Court on July 12.
The chairman also said that all the details about the series between Pakistan and Australia at the neutral venues of the UAE in August-September this year had been finalised. The two countries are to play three T20 Internationals and as many ODIs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.