{"id":37932,"date":"2023-12-21T02:14:03","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T02:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/leaked-audio-exposes-pcb-plot-to-push-babar-azam-out\/"},"modified":"2023-12-21T02:14:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T02:14:03","slug":"leaked-audio-exposes-pcb-plot-to-push-babar-azam-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/leaked-audio-exposes-pcb-plot-to-push-babar-azam-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaked audio exposes \u2018PCB plot\u2019 to push Babar Azam out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>LAHORE: While the country\u2019s political landscape has been rocked by the leaks of several secretly-recor\u00added phone conversations between key figures, Pakistan cricket also recently experienced a similar seismic shock.<\/p>\n<p>An audio leak, purportedly featuring a voice said to belonging to Pakis\u00adtan Cricket Board\u2019s (PCB) interim management committee chairman Zaka Ashraf, has exposed how plans were in motion to remove Babar Azam as the national team\u2019s all-format captain.<\/p>\n<p>Babar had announced he was stepping down as captain of the team following Pakistan\u2019s limp performance at the World Cup in India, but the leaked audio has shone new light on how circumstances were created to force the star batter to quit.<\/p>\n<p>Although the PCB did not immediately respond to a request for comment by <em>Dawn<\/em>, a source privy to the matter said that it was indeed the PCB chief\u2019s voice in the recording.<\/p>\n<p>The source claimed that the conversation was a private discussion with a member of his family, where the PCB boss can be heard discussing the appointments of Shan Masood and Shaheen Shah Afridi as the Test and T20 captains, respectively.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"blockquote-level-1\">\n<p>Voice purportedly belonging to Zaka Ashraf can be heard telling family member how he manoeuvred captaincy away from star batter<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The conversation also centred on the role of player agents and the culture of friendship that was allegedly prevalent in the team, with Babar being accused of recruiting his close friends in the side.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1790013\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The fact that most of the players who were selected for the World Cup were clients of Saya Corporation \u2014 an allegation that prompted chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq to resign from his post during the tournament \u2014 was also discussed.<\/p>\n<p>In the audio recording, the voice believed to belong to Mr Ashraf reveals that he already had a back-up plan in mind for when Babar would relinquish the team\u2019s captaincy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI asked Babar to stay on as Test captain, but told him that I was thinking of removing him as the white-ball captain,\u201d the voice said to be Zaka Ashraf\u2019s tells the other party. \u201cBabar told me he would consult his family and then convey his decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The same person adds that he knows that instead of calling his family, Babar would be calling Talha Reh\u00admani, the CEO of Saya Corporation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTalha advised him to leave everything,\u201d the PCB chief adds in the leak. \u201cI had a Plan-B prepared should such a situation arise and when Babar told me he was stepping down, I called him and told him that you\u2019re the captain now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ashraf doesn\u2019t clarify whether it was Shan or Shaheen he called, al\u00adthough he\u2019s asked by the voice on the other side, which belongs to a woman, whether wicket-keeper Mohammad Rizwan would\u2019ve been a better option.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI liked Rizwan a lot, but he\u2019s too involved with Babar and Talha,\u201d Zaka can be heard saying.<\/p>\n<p>The woman\u2019s voice posits that Shaheen seems under the control of former Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi, who is the father-in-law of the T20 skipper, to which another person can be heard saying, \u201c\u2026 this interference is quite common\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the audio, Babar was also accused of having insisted on playing \u201cclose friend\u201d Shadab Khan, who was ineffective during the World Cup. There is also the mention of pacer Hasan Ali.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ashraf\u2019s voice responds, saying that this was the reason for deterioration of Pakistan cricket. He also made clear his resentment of the Saya Corporation CEO. \u201cHe [Talha] has controlled eight players of the national team. He has signed contracts with the players [\u2026] he is such a smart guy that he has built a lot of relationships with the players\u2019 families by going to the players\u2019 houses, and the players can\u2019t move without him,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The PCB began an inquiry into Inzamam\u2019s links with Talha\u2019s Saya Corporation, but it was stopped once the chief selector resigned.<\/p>\n<p>In the leak, Mr Ashraf\u2019s voice adds that Inzamam had begun \u201cspeaking against us\u201d after he was ousted as chief selector. <em>Dawn<\/em> has also learnt that Mr Ashraf is considering a review of the PCB\u2019s policy regarding player agents. Although work on the review is in its initial stages, the PCB is said to be considering a cap of two players per agent.<\/p>\n<p><em>Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LAHORE: While the country\u2019s political landscape has been rocked by the leaks of several secretly-recor\u00added phone conversations between key figures, Pakistan cricket also recently experienced a similar seismic shock. An audio leak, purportedly featuring a voice said to belonging to Pakis\u00adtan Cricket Board\u2019s (PCB) interim management committee chairman Zaka Ashraf, has exposed how plans were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37933,"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\/12\/20081554e048ae8.jpg?r=081625","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37932","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\/37932","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=37932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}