Former Pakistan bowler Yasir Arafat has accused the Pakistan selectors of favoritism in the team selection, claiming the national team management has been preferring certain talents and overlooking other, more talented players who actually deserved to play for the senior team over the years.
During a chat on Kamran Akmal’s YouTube channel, Arafat also lambasted the senior cricketers of his time for favoritism and creating a vicious atmosphere in the dressing room, which made the youngsters feel unwelcomed in the team while recalling his ODI debut in the year 2000.
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Arafat said on Akmal’s YouTube channel: “When I made my debut in 2000, we had come after playing the Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka. The Pakistan senior team had come back from Australia at the time and there were a lot of changes being made. They had dropped 5-6 players due to the bad performance. Even the captaincy, I think, Wasim Akram was doing it (Saeed Anwar was the captain). In that match, Younis Khan and another batsman Imran Abbas also made their debuts.”
He further added, “The atmosphere was such, and the senior players had such an attitude that you would feel that you are unwelcome in the team. You would feel that you have come to an alien place where if you need to perform, you needed to do it yourself, you would not get any support at all.”
However, Arafat, who played three Tests, 11 ODIs, and 13 T20Is for Pakistan, admitted that he was a little unfortunate to have played in the era of Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood, who are two of Pakistan's greatest ever all-rounders, but even after their retirement less experienced were given preference over him, that was unfair, said the cricketer.
The former all-rounder added, “As far as Pakistan cricket is concerned, we haven’t had better all-rounders than Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood. But even when they were not there, other cricketers were fast-tracked based on someone’s liking, someone who had played two matches of first-class cricket or not played at all. I didn’t understand why I was not in their good books.”
Arafat further recalled unfair treatment at the Pakistan team when he was not even given his full quota of overs while narrating an incident from his comeback match against England in 2005.
He went on to recall, “I used to value domestic cricket and play the entire season and perform. Pakistan team used to play me in an odd match and even then they gave me 5-7 overs and then dropped me. I made a comeback against England in 2005. Before the Karachi match, the management told me that I would not be playing and said that my domestic team wanted me to play for them. I felt very strange because I play domestic cricket for the entire season and when I made it to the Pakistan team, they were again asking me to play domestic cricket.”
Arafat signed off by saying, “So I refused at that time and I don’t know how they played me in that match. There was no communication with me. In the morning when I played the match also, I was told at the last moment that I was playing. There also I dismissed Flintoff and there was a catch dropped in the slips of my bowling but I got to bowl only seven overs. So I was never given a proper chance.”
(With The News Inputs)
