Pakistan players fined for breaking team curfew

KARACHI: Eight members of Pakistan’s World Cup squad have been slapped with fines for breaking team curfew in Sydney ahead of a warm-up match against Bangladesh.
Well-placed sources told ‘The News’ on Wednesday that the team management was left fuming after it found out that several members of the squad slipped out of the team hotel in Sydney for a late night excursion.
Naveed Akram Cheema, Pakistan’s manager with a reputation of being a hard taskmaster, decided to take the players to task by issuing them a warning and imposing fines.
The team management decided to keep the incident a secret in a bid to shield the team’s morale ahead of Pakistan high-voltage World Cup opener against old foes India at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
However, several members of the Pakistani community in Sydney saw the Pakistani players in a local club late night. After that, tongues were bound to wag.
An eye witness told ‘The News’ from Sydney that the players were asked by an Australian man of Pakistani-origin as to what were they doing in a night club so late at night just days before the World Cup. “One of the Pakistani players got angry and asked the man to go away,” the eye witness said.
At the centre of the controversy, according to the eye witness, was Ahmed Shehzad, Pakistan’s young and talented opener.
“Shehzad picked up a fight with a big guy who is apparently a local boxer,” the eye witness said. “He could have been in big trouble but got away without getting hurt after apologizing,” he added.
Ahmed, 23, has been unable to find form ahead of the big game against India. He was dismissed cheaply for 2 and 5 in the two World Cup warm-up games that Pakistan played against England and Bangladesh respectively.
The youngster is no stranger to controversy as a look back at his chequered past shows. Back in 2008 when he was barely 16, Shehzad was fined $400 and banned for two matches during an academy team’s tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya. The action was taken by team manager Haroon Rasheed after Shehzad and all-rounder Anwar Ali broke team curfew in Nairobi.
More recently, Shehzad found himself at the centre of an unnecessary controversy when he was caught on camera telling Sri Lanka’s Tillakaratne Dilshan “if you are a non-Muslim and you turn Muslim, no matter whatever you do in your life, straight to heaven.”