Karachi, March 10: In an unprecedented disciplinary action ever taken in sports against senior members of a national team, the Pakistan Cricket Board on Wednesday, banned for life, former captains Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan, while banning yet another former captain Shoaib Malik and all-rounder Rana Naved for one-year besides fining the latter two Rs 20 lakhs each for various misdemeanors.
The PCK also fined flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi and the Akmal brothers- Kamran and Umar, Rs 30 lakhs. The trio would also be put under probation for the next six months.
PCB’s iron-handed treatment comes in wake of the recommendations of an inquiry committee formed to look into Pakistan’s disastrous tour to Australia. Pakistan was blanked 3-0 in a 3-Test series, 5-0 in a 5-match ODI series before losing the solitary Twenty20 as well during the 2-month long tour besotted by reports of growing indiscipline in the squad.
The measures represent some of the harshest punishments taken against Pakistan players and will further throw the composition of Pakistan’s squad for the World Twenty20 into considerable disarray. None of the players, it is believed, are certain to make the 15-man squad for the tournament at this moment.
A six-man committee had completed its report last week and sent it to the PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt. The chairman held a meeting with the selection committee on Monday in which he briefed them on the contents of the inquiry committee’s report.
-Agencies