The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is miffed with Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi for engaging in fan interactions on the social media platform 'X'.
The Q&A sessions hosted on 'X', formerly Twitter, underscored Babar's enduring popularity despite relinquishing the captaincy, as his session attracted over 20,000 fans. In contrast, Shaheen's session saw participation from approximately 4,000 fans.
However, a source within the PCB revealed that the decision of the two senior players to proceed with the social media sessions, seemingly orchestrated by their agent, has not been well received by the board.
PCB to revisit Pakistan players' social media policy
"The PCB will look to revisit some of the clauses that the centrally contracted players need to adhere to," the source said, as quoted by PTI.
"The clauses covering the social media activities of contracted players are now being reviewed again by the board because it is concerned such public Q and A sessions could result in unnecessary controversies,” he said.
Ongoing tension between the PCB and players
Since last year, there has been ongoing tension between the PCB and players regarding the utilisation of social media and the issuance of NOCs for foreign T20 leagues. The situation has been further exacerbated by the PCB having its fourth Chairman since December 2022, contributing to a lack of clarity among players, their agents, and the board.
"Every PCB chairman has tried to run the board in his own way and in some cases, even ignored the written clauses of the central contracts and given special permissions to players in the past 12 months," the source added.
Notably, this development occurred shortly after Mohsin Naqvi, who had been serving as the interim Punjab CM, was elected as the new PCB chairman on a three-year contract. He replaced interim chair Zaka Ashraf in this role.
According to the source, the newly appointed chairman, Mohsin Naqvi, requested information regarding the central contracts of the players and also sought transcripts of all interviews and social media content from the past few months.
"Naqvi clearly wants a revised media policy for players and for this the PCB could revise some clauses of the central contracts," the source further added.
Pakistan's underwhelming performances of late
Talking about Pakistan's performance, they haven't won any series in overseas, with the exception of matches against Zimbabwe and other minnow teams of late. Their recent struggles on foreign soil were exemplified by consecutive series losses in Australia and New Zealand last month.
Following their disappointing exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India, which also led to Babar Azam resigning from the captaincy across all formats, Pakistan embarked on a tour to Australia for a three-match Test series. Shan Masood was appointed as the new Test captain, while Shaheen Afridi assumed leadership of the T20I team. Their journey began with a whitewash at the hands of Australia in the Benaud-Qadir Trophy Test series, shortly after their World Cup disappointment. Subsequently, they faced further defeats in a five-match T20I series against New Zealand. The Kiwis proved to be equally formidable opponents, clinching victory in the first four T20Is before Pakistan managed to salvage pride with a win in the fifth match.
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