Zaka Ashraf dispels rumours of rift in Pakistan team

Monitoring Desk

BAHAWALPUR: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Management Committee Chairman Zaka Ashraf opened up on the alleged rift within the Pakistan men’s cricket team.

Speaking to the media here on Monday, the PCB head cleared the air on the ongoing controversy regarding the national team, who are participating in the ICC World Cup 2023.

Zaka Ashraf categorically denied any rift within the players and blamed “cricket enemies” for spreading the false rumours. “There is no infighting in the team,” said Ashraf. “The whole team is united. These baseless stories are created by the enemies of the game.”

For the unversed, it was reported in late September that Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi got into an argument when the captain expressed his disappointment with the senior players in the dressing room, after losing the deciding Super Four clash of the Asia Cup to Sri Lanka, which led to their elimination from the continental event.
Reports also suggested that things got pretty tense between Babar and Shaheen after the heated argument before wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan intervened to bring the situation back under control.

Later, the ace pacer Shaheen took to his Instagram account in the evening, sharing a picture with Babar. He captioned the solo picture from a chess game with “Family”.
Babar, who was in Dubai, then flew down to Karachi to attend Shaheen and Ansha Afridi’s wedding reception in the metropolitan. It appeared that all was well among Green Shirts but their series of losses in the ICC World Cup 2023 reignited the rumours of a rift, especially among the three frontmen of the national cricket team – Babar, Shaheen and Rizwan.

Meanwhile, Zaka Ashraf then extended well wishes for the national team’s ICC World Cup 2023 campaign.