Opener Fakhar Zaman has been issued a show-cause notice by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after he put out a post on the social media platform “X” (formerly Twitter) raising concerns about the team management’s decision to drop former skipper Babar Azam.
PCB dropped Babar Azam alongside Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Sarfaraz Ahmed from the remaining two tests of the ongoing series against England after losing the first test of the 3-match series.
Babar Azam was going through a really bad phase with the bat as he had failed to score even a fifty in the last 17 test innings since the start of 2023 and averaged only 20.70 during that phase. The team management said that Babar and the other players were given a rest keeping in mind the busy schedule ahead in 2024-25 and for the players to regain their form and fitness.
But there were rumours that Babar wanted to play and questions were raised about dropping the players as this test series against England is an important one and Pakistan had already lost the first test.
“Dropping Babar Azam could send a deeply negative message across the team”: Fakhar Zaman
The south-paw opener said in his tweet, “It’s concerning to hear suggestions about dropping Babar Azam”. He then gave the example of the Indian board and team management who backed Virat Kohli during his lean patch with the bat from 2020 to 2023.
Fakhar also said that it could send a deeply negative message across the team if we are considering sidelining our premier batter, arguably the best Pakistan has ever produced.
“There is still time to avoid pressing the panic button; we should focus on safeguarding our key players rather than undermining them”, he concluded.
ESPNcricinfo reported that PCB was quite disappointed by this post as publicly making such comments could disrepute the game in Pakistan and the player should’ve avoided this or should’ve raised any complaints privately to the board.
Fakhar’s public criticism of the board and his employer was considered a breach of his contract with the PCB and he has been asked to submit his reply to the show cause notice by 21st October 2024.
Meanwhile, Kamran Ghulam who replaced Babar Azam in the XI scored a brilliant century on his test debut in the 2nd test against England in Multan. He scored 118 runs and was the only batter who got going in the first innings from Pakistan.
