“Pakistani stars accepted $2,500 for…”: Council to take strong action against ‘undisciplined and careless’ stars

A report in the newspaper ‘Jang’ claimed that some Pakistani players accepted participation fees as low as $2,500 per person to take part in a meet and greet event in Dallas on the sidelines of the 2024 T20 World Cup. It also claimed that another event, ‘A Night with Stars’, was canceled due to differences in payments made to captain Babar Azam and other players. All these revelations will be analyzed during the post-mortem of the league stage elimination, following defeats to tournament newcomers the USA and arch-rivals India.

Although the board has had four presidents since December 2022, none of the top-level employees have been reassigned or fired.

“It is now becoming clear that if the players are today an undisciplined and careless bunch, the blame for this lies with some of the senior management officials who have patronized them in many ways, including in the finalization of central contracts last year.” the added font.

Adding to the drama is speculation that the team is a house divided with Babar and leading pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi at loggerheads over the captaincy.

Pakistan’s chaotic T20 World Cup campaign in the US is set to trigger a stir in the country’s cricket board and lead to the formulation of a code of conduct for players, who are attracting criticism for taking their families along and making paid appearances at promotional events. during the tournament.

A reliable source in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) confirmed that chairman Mohsin Naqvi is furious with the performance of some senior officials and held them responsible for the indiscipline prevailing in the team, which could not go beyond the league stage.

“You can expect the PCB to lose senior management staff and also enforce some strict policies for players in the future,” the source said.

He said a policy decision on players not being allowed to have their families at the ICC and other important events is also expected to be announced soon by the PCB as part of its clean-up operation.

“The fact that so many players not only took their wives and children to the World Cup, but also had their parents, brothers, etc. staying at the team hotel, made the president unhappy,” said the source.

He said when questions were asked about who gave permission to the players to take all their family members on tour, it turned out that some senior board officials were behind this decision.

“Some of these managers are not professionals, but fans of the players, and they made many concessions to them that eventually led to the World Cup disaster,” the source said.

He said the PCB chief has now asked for a performance appraisal report of all high-level officials as he is also dissatisfied with the progress of work for the ICC Champions Trophy scheduled for early next year in Pakistan.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)