{"id":19401,"date":"2023-10-30T07:15:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T07:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/pakistan-reach-kolkata-amid-cloud-of-uncertainty\/"},"modified":"2023-10-30T07:15:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T07:15:09","slug":"pakistan-reach-kolkata-amid-cloud-of-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/pakistan-reach-kolkata-amid-cloud-of-uncertainty\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan reach Kolkata amid cloud of uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

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THE Pakistan squad landed here in the city of joy on Saturday evening, with hardly enough things to be joyful about.<\/p>\n

Babar Azam and his men are languishing sixth in the World Cup points table having won just two of their six matches so far, with their chances to make the semi-finals extremely narrow.<\/p>\n

While Pakistan\u2019s on field problems continue to carry on, the issues off the field have created an air of suffocation and panic within the ranks. In fact, they exactly may be the reason for the team\u2019s below par performances.<\/p>\n

Following Pakistan\u2019s one-wicket defeat<\/a> to South Africa on Friday, former captain Rashid Latif claimed that Babar had been trying to reach Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) interim Management Committee chairman Zaka Ashraf over the phone for two days but hadn\u2019t received a response.<\/p>\n

Rashid went on to say during the World Cup transmission on state television that Babar also dialed the PCB\u2019s chief operating officer Salman Naseer and director international Usman Wahla but failed to hear back from both officials.<\/p>\n

The apparent fallout, according to Rashid and some media reports, has occurred due to ongoing disagreements over the players\u2019 central contracts \u2013 the revised version of which is yet to be signed.<\/p>\n

The players, the ex wicket-keeper claimed, haven\u2019t been paid their salaries since the last five months and that there were still disagreements between them and the board over some clauses of the contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cCategorically\u201d denying Rashid\u2019s claim, the Pakistan team\u2019s media manager and previously the PCB\u2019s director media Umar Farooq Kalson, said Babar and all the other players were focused on cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe claim made by [Rashid Latif] was not true,\u201d Umar told Dawn<\/em> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

On Sunday night, Umar said the players had \u201cstarted singing the contracts\u201d after the documents were received by the team management here.<\/p>\n

He added that the players will begin to receive their due compensations from next week.<\/p>\n

However, the PCB official said there were no revisions from the contracts offered in September. The contracts were originally negotiated last month hours before team\u2019s departure for World Cup campaign and players were given historic hike in their monthly retainer with over 200 percent increament.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not unusual for the signing process to take time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Umar joined the national team\u2019s camp on Friday night in Chennai, hours after the PCB asked the team\u2019s former media manager Ahsan Iftikhar Nagi to return to Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The abrupt nature of Ahsan\u2019s withdrawal from the Pakistan contingent hinted that all was not right within the ranks of the team management.<\/p>\n

While the controversy unfolded, the PCB had released a statement urging fans and the country\u2019s cricket fraternity to \u201ccontinue to support the team but also suggested the higher officials of the board weren\u2019t involved in the selection of the team ahead of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Since September 2021, the PCB has been run by three different administrations, two of them \u2013 that of Zaka and his predecessor Najam Sethi \u2013 have been interim setups.<\/p>\n

While both Sethi and Zaka\u2019s management committees were mandated to hold the pending elections of the PCB, they went on to carry out high profile recruitment and take cricketing decisions.<\/p>\n

The fluctuating and differing nature of the board\u2019s decision making has affected the team mentally ahead of and during the World Cup.<\/p>\n

According to a source within the national team\u2019s camp, the instability at the PCB offices has let fear slip into the players\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are humans, it is unavoidable,\u201d the source told Dawn<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s not ideal, you know, when it\u2019s continually changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not ideal for anybody because there is instability, and instability brings fear, it creates uncertainty and those are things that we all feel but we can never use that as an excuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to do our professional job and we are doing that for the best of our abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE Pakistan squad landed here in the city of joy on Saturday evening, with hardly enough things to be joyful about. Babar Azam and his men are languishing sixth in the World Cup points table having won just two of their six matches so far, with their chances to make the semi-finals extremely narrow. While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/30101610b6fd6af.jpg?r=101700","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}