Pakistan captain Babar Azam on September 26 (Tuesday) addressed the widely reported news about an alleged fight with Shaheen Afridi in the dressing room after Men in Green suffered a defeat against Sri Lanka in the Super 4s stage of the recently-concluded Asia Cup. Addressing a press conference ahead of the team's departure for Dubai, Babar quashed all such reports of a rift with his star pacer and said a normal discussion among teammates after a defeat is very common.
"While discussions among teammates after a defeat are typical, the news was blown out of proportion, making it seem as though the teammates had a disagreement. Undoubtedly, the players of the Pakistan cricket team love each other like family," said Babar.
Earlier, Shaheen had posted a tweet on X, formerly Twitter, where he shared a picture with Babar and captioned it as "Family" with a hearty emoji.
Visa granted to Pakistan cricket team
Pakistan cricket team have been issued visas for the upcoming ODI World Cup 2023. Earlier there were reports that Pakistan players are yet to get visas and they are the only team to be without visas ahead of the big event. Along with Pakistan, the Afghanistan team was issued visas on September 25 as well. The visas were cleared by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on September 25.
The Pakistan team is scheduled to fly out to Dubai early morning on September 27 (Wednesday). From there, they will take the flight to Hyderabad which will reach in the evening.
Pakistan will go up against New Zealand in their first warm-up game against New Zealand at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on September 29. On October 3, they will face Australia in their next warm-up game.
Babar Azam’s Pakistan will begin their World Cup campaign against the Netherlands on October 6 at the same venue.
Pakistan squad for World Cup: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Abdullah Shafique, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Salman Ali Agha, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi, and Usama Mir.
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