PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi explained the reason behind removing opening batter Fakhar Zaman from both the central contracts and the squads for the Australia and Zimbabwe tours. PCB recently published the list of its central contracts for 2024-25 and announced squads for these tours, which are slated to take place in November and December this year.
It happened at the Lahore presser when Naqvi was questioned about the fact why Fakhar was left behind. To defend himself and the selectors, Naqvi revealed to the newsmen that the sole cause of controversy was a particular tweet posted recently by Fakhar, who had seemed defending Babar Azam therein; however, he added that whatever issues Fakhar seemed to be having with respect to his fitness levels overshadows all other issues on the same.
“There is the tweet issue definitely, but that doesn’t matter as much as his fitness tests. He had two issues: the fitness test and the show-cause notice, which is still pending,” Naqvi explained. “If a player is dropped and another starts tweeting against it, this is unacceptable. However, the bigger issue is his fitness test.”
Earlier this month, Fakhar had voiced his displeasure over being shown the door by the selection committee following the first Test against England on a show-cause notice issued by the PCB. In the new contracts, Shaheen Afridi has been demoted from Category A to Category B, while the big names like Fakhar, Hasan Ali, and Sarfaraz Ahmed were left out of the entire exercise.
The latest contract has come after Pakistan’s premature exit from the 2024 T20 World Cup while PCB now goes by the policy of performance-based contracts. In July last year, PCB came out with a new contract system for the players, who will be assessed quarterly in fitness and also must play in domestic cricket for the cricketers.
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