“I’m afraid Shaheen won’t be available for the World Cup”: Mohammad Hafeez exclaims Shaheen Afridi’s careless handling of injury by PCB might cost him his T20 World Cup 2022 berth

Gurpreet Singh | 04/09/2022
"I'm afraid Shaheen won't be available for the World Cup": Mohammad Hafeez exclaims Shaheen Afridi's careless handling of injury by PCB might cost him his T20 World Cup 2022 berth

Mohammad Hafeez exclaims Shaheen Afridi might miss the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia as well due to PCB’s careless approach.

Mohammad Hafeez joins the list of former Pakistan cricketers who have lately expressed their displeasure with the way the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have handled the injury of their star fast bowler Shaheen Afridi.

To brush it up, Afridi had picked up a knee injury during Pakistan’s first Test match against Sri Lanka at Galle in July, and was ruled out for the rest of the series. Despite not having fully recovered, he was picked by the management for the three-match ODI series against Netherlands, although under the supervision of a couple of doctors.

With the Asia Cup 2022 and the T20 World Cup in view as well, the aforementioned decision taken by the PCB  think-tank and by skipper Babar Azam was harshly criticized by the  fans, and as it turned out, the 22-year-old was ruled out of the ongoing Asia Cup and also from Pakistan’s seven match home T20I series against England as well.

Mohammad Hafeez exclaims Shaheen Afridi might miss the 2022 T20 World Cup

With the PCB medical team advising a four-six weeks rest for the left-arm pacer, fans and experts were left scratching their heads when he also travelled with the Pakistan squad to UAE for the Asia Cup.

“Babar wanted him to stay with the team. Management wants to closely monitor his injury rehab. He will be staying in Dubai itself with the team,” a PCB spokesperson had confirmed to the local media in Pakistan.

Ahead of Pakistan’s ongoing clash against India in the tournament’s ‘Super 4’ stage, former Pakistan batter Mohammad Hafeez seemed to be pretty unamused by Shaheen’s lack of discipline post injury, and also criticized the PCB with the way they went about with addressing his injury. Hafeez now also fears that the mishandling of the injury and careless approach by the board might cost Shaheen a place in the T20 World Cup squad  as well.

“Self discipline is your own responsibility, and blaming others is not the correct way forward. Unfortunately, in case of Shaheen, he was not diagnosed properly or the board wasted a lot of time to look after his injury rehab process. The rehab process takes time, and if you are late with the process, the injury takes all the more time to heal properly. Thus, I fear for his on-time recovery which might well mean that he might also be unavailable for the T20 World Cup as  well,” remarked Hafeez.

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Post Edited By: Gurpreet Singh
ICC T20 World Cup 2022 Mohammad Hafeez pcb Shaheen Afridi

About the author

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh is a Cricket writer at The Sportsrush. His platonic relationship with sports had always been there since childhood, but Cricket managed to strike a special, intimate nerve of his heart. Although his initial dream of playing the sport at the highest level couldn't come to fruition, Gurpreet did represent the state of Jharkhand at the under-14 level. However, almost like taking a pledge to never let the undying passion for Cricket fade away even a tad, he made sure to continue the love relationship by assigning the field of journalism as an indirect Cupid. He thus, first finished his bachelor's in journalism and then pursued the PG Diploma course in English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Soon after and since 2019, he has been working at The Sportsrush. Apart from sports, he takes keen interest in politics, and in understanding women and gender-related issues.

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