http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 put bad blood to End
After agonizing last few weeks, Pakistan cricket has finally buried another controversy, after former skipper Shahid Afridi was given his No Objection Certificate (NOC) to play for English County side http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Hampshire-c789 in the ongoing Friends Life T20 tournament
in England.
However, this NOC didn’t come without a price as the flamboyant skipper was awarded a penalty of 4.5 million Pakistani rupees for breaching Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) code of conduct last month when during the announcement of his retirement from international
cricket, the 31-year old criticized the Chairman PCB Ijaz Butt for being the main reason behind the sorry state of cricket in the country.
Afridi perhaps going a bit far blamed Butt for the reason behind his retirement and also had a word or two for a former Pakistan cricketer Mohammad Ilyas, who according to Afridi orchestrated a plot to convince the chairman that he was not the right man
to lead http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 cricket team.
However, going a bit further behind, the hard hitting batsman, landed in the eye of the storm when he criticized the touring team management for meddling in the matters of team selection during the tour of the Caribbean, where Afridi led the boys in green
to another one-day series victory by 3-2 in a five-match event.
The tourists lost the last two games, consequently because of the stressful relationship between the skipper and the team management.
In Pakistan, a loss in a cricket match means more than previous victories, so the two loses over shadowed the first three wins, and obviously, everyone in the PCB wanted to hold Afridi responsible for the loss, the irony of the whole incident is that fact
that instead of listening to the skipper, the arrogant Ijaz Butt, decided to consider all other options which included looking for a new player to replace the sensational all-rounder, who even at the age of 31 is still a far better fielder than the younger
lads in the squad.
The question that every Pakistani is asking now, is why was the board so eager to take action against the hot headed Afridi, it is not as if in the past Pakistan has not seen aggressive skippers, if the PCB tagged along with the likes of Imran Khan and Wasim
Akram who were far bitter and aggressive captains, then why not Afridi, at least under Afridi even a weak Pakistan outfit was managing to give stronger sides a tough time on the field , the performance of the green shirts in the recently concluded http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 world
cup 2011 is a testament to the fact that Afridi was doing more good than bad with the team.
In the mega event, no one had imagined in their wildest dreams to see a written-off Pakistan side reach the semi-finals of the toughest contest in the world of cricket, where they were finally defeated by arch nemesis http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750, who later went on to lift the
world cup.
Being beaten by a team which won the tournament later on, isn’t a bad omen, so why treat Afridi this why?, these are some of the questions which need to be answered by Butt, unfortunately, the Public Relations department of the PCB isn’t doing a commendable
job in answering the queries of a shocked nation, which clearly seems to be standing in limbo, not knowing whether their heartthrob cricketer will ever dawn on a cricket field wearing the national colours or has he taken a final bow in international cricket.
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