Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi has explained the reason behind sacking Fakhar Zaman from the central contract. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, 27 October, Naqvi said that any national team player cannot go around tweeting his opinion on calls made by the selection committee.
Fakhar Zaman had tweeted in support of Babar Azam ahead of the 2nd Test match against England after the player had been dropped from the side due to poor form. Fakhar had said that dropping Babar would send a poor message to the Test side. The left-hander had also name-dropped Virat Kohli in the tweet comparing the lows of both players.
Mohsin Naqvi said that apart from the tweet issue, Fakhar was not up to the mark with his fitness, which was the main reason behind dropping the player from the contact.
“Tweet was one issue, but the bigger matter was that of fitness. There is a show-cause notice pending against him, and we will see about that. He would need to prove his fitness, his point of view was valued in the Connection Camp and I am very thankful to him for that but you cannot go around commenting on the selection committee over selection calls. But ya, the bigger issue is of selection,” Mohsin Naqvi said in the press conference.
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The PCB released its fresh contact list after the conclusion of the England Test series. Fakhar Zaman was removed from their central contracts list after openly criticizing their national cricket board for resting Babar Azam midway through the England Test series. Notably, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) released the list of contracted players for 2024-25 season on Sunday, October 27. While several youngsters earned their maiden contracts, names of a few veterans were found missing from the list.
Among them was Fakhar Zaman, who was earlier a part of Category B in the central contracts for the previous season. His removal comes just a few weeks after he openly criticized the decision to rest Babar Azam on his X handle. The post didn’t go down well with the PCB officials and the board issued him a ‘show cause’ notice for his post.
In the aftermath of the incident, Fakhar has now lost his central contract for the first time in eight years. The swashbuckling batter last played for his team during the T20 World Cup 2024 where Pakistan were knocked out of the tournament in the first stage after embarrassing losses against co-hosts USA and India.
List of centrally contracted players for Pakistan men’s team
Category A: Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan
Category B: Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood
Category C: Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Saud Shakeel and Shadab Khan
Category D: Aamir Jamal, Haseebullah, Kamran Ghulam, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Hurraira, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr and Usman Khan
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