Tag: PCB

  • Why ‘big names’ don’t play PSL, furious Ramiz asks management

    Why ‘big names’ don’t play PSL, furious Ramiz asks management

    Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ramiz Raja and the franchises’ owners had a heated argument during a meeting recently to discuss about the upcoming Pakistan Super League (PSL) season seven, reported Samaa.

    Read More – Shahid Afridi reportedly to play for Quetta Gladiators in PSL 2022

    The seventh edition of the league is all set to begin in mid-January next year, with drafts of the league expected to take place in the second week of December.

    The chairman had a heated exchange with the franchises owners, where Raja called them ‘intruders’.

    “PSL is our home and you guys are intruders,” a source inside the board quoted the PCB chairman. “You have destroyed windows and doors of our house.”

    Quetta Gladiators owner Nadeem Omer replied that PSL is because of the franchises. “We are the investors of the league,” he said. “We have six successful seasons of the league and it is our home.”

    The PCB chairman asked players’ accusation and management committee member Imran Ahmed Khan that why renowned T20 cricketers like Australia’s Maxwell and other don’t play PSL.

    “We have invited them many times, but they refuse to play in Pakistan,” he replied.

    The board and the franchises owners disagreed over the salary cap set by the body for the upcoming edition of the league. Ramiz had asked the franchises to increase the salary cap to $1.2 million from $0.95 million.

    However, the franchises after a detailed argument with the PCB chief managed to keep the salary cap at $0.95 million for the PSL7.

  • Pakistan announces 12-man team for first Test against Bangladesh

    Pakistan announces 12-man team for first Test against Bangladesh

    Pakistan’s cricket team, after defeating Bangladesh with a clean sweep in the three-match T20I series, is now all set to play two-match Test series against the hosts. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced a 12 member team for the clash which will be played at the Ch. Zahoor Ahmed Cricket Stadium, Chittagong starting from Friday, November 26.

    Squad for first Test:

    Babar Azam – Captain, Mohammad Rizwan – Vice captain (wicketkeeper), Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Hassan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi

    Meanwhile, Bangladesh on Monday announced the squad for the series. The Tigers have called up uncapped batsman Mahmudul Hasan and pace bowler Rejaur Rahman.

    Squad: Mominul Haque (captain), Shadman Islam, Saif Hasan, Najmul Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Nayeem Hasan, Taijul Islam, Ebadot Hossain Chowdhury, Abu Jayed Chowdhury, Yasir Ali, Mahmudul Hasan, Rejaur Rahman, Shakib Al Hasan (subject to fitness)

    The second match will be played from Saturday, December 4 at Sher-e-Bangla Cricket Stadium Mirpur, Dhaka.

  • Shahnawaz Dahani to make his T20I debut today against Bangladesh

    Shahnawaz Dahani to make his T20I debut today against Bangladesh

    Pakistan’s young pacer Shahnawaz Dahani will be making his T20I debut on Monday (today) in the last T20I of the three-match series against Bangladesh.

    Read More – Shoaib Malik to fly for Dubai to be with ailing son Izhaan

    The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) shared a video of the pacer in which he can be seen talking to his mother about his debut match in his native language.

    The 23-year-old cricketer will be the 95th T20I player to represent the national cricket team internationally.

    People from the cricket fraternity wished the young bowler well for his debut.

    Former captain and wicket keeper-batter Sarfaraz Ahmad presented the cap to the debutante before the match.

    Pakistan is set to play the last T20I of the three-match series against Bangladesh today, November 22. Pakistan is leading the series with 2-0, and today the Men In Green will be opting for a white-wash.

    The national Test side will play the Test matches in Chittagong on Tuesday for the first of the two Tests. Pakistan and Bangladesh will play two World Test Championship matches.

    The Chittagong Test will commence from November 26 and the second Test will be played in Dhaka from December 4-8.

  • Pakistan names 20-member squad for Bangladesh Tests, including Imam

    Pakistan names 20-member squad for Bangladesh Tests, including Imam

    The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced 20-member squad for Bangladesh Test match series. Opener Imam-ul-Haq is making a comeback to the national team.

    The opener has been recalled on the back of a blistering form in the ongoing Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, where he has so far amassed 488 runs in five innings. Middle-order hitter Kamran Ghulam and off-spinner Bilal Asif likewise track down a spot in the 20-part crew.

    Bilal Asif has replaced leg-spinner Yasir Shah who is yet to fully recover from the thumb injury he suffered while playing in the domestic T20 tournament. Kamran also returns to the squad after being left out during Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies. Pacers Haris Rauf and Shahnawaz Dahani have been left out and will be allowed to travel back to Pakistan after the T20I leg of the tour.

    The first Test will take place in Chittagong from November 26 with the second match taking place in Dhaka between December 4-8.

    Pakistan squad:

    Babar Azam (captain), Mohammad Rizwan, Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali, Bilal Asif, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Nawaz, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Zahid Mahmood

  • ‘Gone nuts’: Asad Siddiqui lashes out at ICC for snubbing Babar Azam

    ‘Gone nuts’: Asad Siddiqui lashes out at ICC for snubbing Babar Azam

    Actor Asad Siddiqui has lashed out at International Cricket Council (ICC) for not naming the captain of Pakistan Cricket team Babar Azam, as the player of the tournament.

    David Warner was named as the ‘Player of the Tournament’.

    The Zebaish star used his social media to express his anger, “How can you not give the player of the tournament award to Babar Azam, ICC has gone nuts man.”

    Babar’s campaign ended at the hands of Australia at the semi-final stage, but he sealed a historic 10-wicket win against India.

    He added three more fifties, meaning he sits tied with Matthew Hayden and Virat Kohli for the most half-centuries in T20 World Cup, while only Kohli and Tillakaratne Dilshan have scored more runs at a single edition.

    However, Babar Azam was named the skipper of ICC’s Team of the Tournament for the mega event. 

  • Well done, Boys in Green!

    Well done, Boys in Green!

    Today, the final of the T20 World Cup is being played between Australia and New Zealand. We wish that instead of Australia, Pakistan would have been facing NZ in the final but we lost a close contest to Australia in the semi-final on Thursday. It was extremely disappointing and truly heartbreaking but if truth be told, Pakistan’s overall performance in the tournament made us proud. 

    Pakistan cricket team was the only unbeaten team in the group matches. Nobody could have predicted this performance. Every match had a different Player of the Match, which means the Pakistan team did not just rely on one or two players but performed well as a team. Look at how well Rizwan played against Australia despite being admitted in the hospital prior to the semi-final. This is called team spirit. And we broke one jinx — beating India in a World Cup. We still have to break this other jinx of beating Australia in a knockoff game. Breaking two jinxes in one World Cup was perhaps a lot. But break we will!

    We made some mistakes in the semi-final. We should have made a few more runs and bowled better. Our fielding could have been better too. But everyone learns from their mistakes and this young team will learn too. But let’s not forget that arguably, Australia has probably one of the best sporting cultures in the world and also world-class facilities. In a recent transmission, Wasim Akram revealed that our gymming facilities are decades old and hardly any new machines have been added to the gym at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Training equipment should be the latest and world-class but unfortunately, we don’t have such facilities here. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) must pay attention to these issues as well.

    Babar Azam is a brilliant captain and the unity in the team and their faith in the captain is something that is very good to see in Pakistan cricket, where mostly we have seen a lot of politics behind the scenes against the sitting captain in the past. This team is different. This team stands behind its players. Hassan Ali was not thrown under the bus. The response by Pakistan Twitter in his support is also something these boys will remember. They made us happy in uncertain times. They gave us hope when things looked gloomy. 

    We love you, Team Pakistan. There are plenty more World Cups to come and we will win for sure!

  • Wasim Akram disappointed with facilities provided by National Cricket Academy

    Wasim Akram disappointed with facilities provided by National Cricket Academy

    Pakistan’s former captain Wasim Akram, talking about the standards of National Cricket Academy (NCA) and its gyms, has said that he is disappointed with the facilities provided to our athletes.

    Akram, while talking to host Fakhr-e-Alam on A sports, said: “I was invited by a club in Australia, it was a football club and I saw their gym and swimming pool inside the ground where they practice. It was out of this world and the gyms in NCA Lahore, which is operational from when I used to play, has just been renovated and only a few dumbbells have been added and that too one-one set each. When you buy dumbbells, you buy two or three sets of each pair because when the team comes to practice, more people can use them instead of waiting for the other guy to finish. So, we still have the old machines installed since 2001 and look at how much we earn from cricket.”

    Pakistan national cricketer Wahab Riaz also said the place was just renovated recently and said that one or two new machines have been installed and agreeing with Akram, he said that since 2001, only one pair of dumbbells are available in the gyms provided to the players.

    The host then asked Wahab if you compare the gym of NCA with any private gym, what kind of difference do they see?

    Former captain Misbah-ul-Haq dived in and said that he would rather gym at his house than doing it there.

    Wasim Akram added: “So many chairmen came but no one thought about this issue.”

    Have a look:

  • England to play two additional T20Is during their tour to Pakistan in 2022

    England to play two additional T20Is during their tour to Pakistan in 2022

    England will play two additional Twenty20s during their tour to Pakistan next year, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Chief Executive Tom Harrison announced on Tuesday.

    Pakistani cricket fans were infuriated by ECB’s decision to unilaterally cancel their joint men’s and women’s trip to Pakistan, which had been planned for October, with Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ramiz Raja saying that his nation had been “used then binned” as part of a “West versus rest” mentality.

    That visit would have been England’s first since 2005 and came against the backdrop of New Zealand’s prior withdrawal from Pakistan, citing a specific and credible security threat.

    Harrison travelled this week in an apparently successful bid to repair relations, agreeing to extend what had been a five-match T20 series to a bumper seven-match rubber next September and October.

    England will also return for a three-Test series starting in November, after the T20 World Cup in Australia.

    Announcing the deal, Harrison said: “Myself and ECB’s senior director Martin Darlow visited Lahore to talk face to face with the PCB around some of the things that have happened over the past few weeks, leading to the cancellation of our tour in October.

    “We also wanted to discuss the future as the two boards have a historic relationship and want to move the agenda towards a forward-looking one as opposed to one looking back.

    “This is just to reaffirm our commitment to Pakistan cricket to getting England teams, men’s and women’s teams, eventually playing in Pakistan at home.

    “I don’t think there’s a cricketer in England who doesn’t want to test their abilities against the huge talent this country has and in the conditions they know best.”

    It was announced earlier this week that Australia would tour Pakistan for the first time since 1998 when they visit the country in March and April 2022 for three Tests, three ODIs and a T20 international.

    “The ECB have shown their large heartedness to be here for which I am thankful to Tom and Martin. It means a lot to us,” said Ramiz Raja.

  • ECB chief Tom Harrison flies to Pakistan in bid to repair relations between England cricket and PCB

    ECB chief Tom Harrison flies to Pakistan in bid to repair relations between England cricket and PCB

    England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Tom Harrison will meet with Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, as well as Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Ramiz Raja, in a bid to repair relations with Pakistan in the wake of last month’s cancelled T20I tour.

    Read More – New Zealand cancels Pak series due to ‘security concerns’ despite PM Khan’s call to NZ PM

    Officials at the PCB were enraged when England pulled out of the two-match tour at short notice a few weeks ago.

    Now Harrison has flown in to assure Ramiz, the new chairman of the PCB, that England remain committed to their Test tour of the country at the end of 2022. England have not toured Pakistan since late 2005.

    He is also set to meet with PM Khan, Pakistan’s greatest allrounder and World Cup-winning captain, prior to his move into politics, who also serves as patron-in-chief of the PCB.

    Speaking in the wake of the cancelled T20I tour, which followed hot on the heels of New Zealand’s abandonment of their own tour on the morning of their opening ODI in Rawalpindi, Ramiz hit out at what he called cricket’s “western bloc”, and said that the PCB would be making contingency plans to protect their home itinerary in the event of another England pull-out next year.

    Reportedly, Harrison’s trip is only expected to last a couple of days. He is due in the UAE later in the week as the ICC hold their first in-person chief executives’ meeting since the start of the pandemic.

    The news came after Cricket Australia announced its plans for a three-Test, three-ODI and one T20I tour in March-April 2022. If it goes ahead as planned, it will be their first tour of the country since 1998.

  • Australian Cricket team to tour Pakistan in March-April 2022

    Australian Cricket team to tour Pakistan in March-April 2022

    The Australian cricket team will be visiting Pakistan next year in March and April for three Test matches, Three ODIs and one T20I, announced the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Monday.

    Read More – New Zealand cancels Pak series due to ‘security concerns’ despite PM Khan’s call to NZ PM

    According to the details, the first Test match of the series will start on March 3 in Karachi. The second Test will be played in Rawalpindi from March 12 to 16 and the third in Lahore from March 21 to 25.

    Meanwhile, all four white-ball matches of the series will be played in Lahore. These matches will be played from March 29 to April 5.

    Read More – ‘Decision of England board is cowardly, was made out of fear of the players and India’: British author

    Earlier, the PCB Twitter account had tweeted that they will be making a big announcement shortly.

    Australia has not played in Pakistan since 1998.

    However, team Pakistan is set to face Australia in the semi-finals of ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 on (Thursday) November 11.