Match Fixing News
 

President Tarar's secretariat ask selectors to explain Sohail's omission

By Waheed Khan
KARACHI: The national selection committee has been asked to explain why they had ignored Aamer Sohail for the Pakistan team, the directives coming from the President's secretariat after the former captain submitted a complaint with them over his omission from the team. The News' has learnt from well placed sources that the chief selector Wasim Bari had already sent a reply explaining why the selectors had not picked Sohail in the
team, which plays two one day competitions in India and Sharjah and then goes to the World Cup. Sources say Sohail approached the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Patron, President Rafiq Ahmed Tarar and in a written complaint he pointed out that the Board and selectors had been ignoring him for selection without assigning any justification. Sohail's contention was that he was being victimised despite his excellent record since he had spoken before the Judicial Commission against some players accusing them of being involved in fixing matches.The President's secretariat got in touch with the Board and the selection committee and asked the latter to submit a written explanation. Wasim Bari is said to have explained that since Sohail had not made himself available either for the national camp before the Indian tour or the Asian Test Championship match against Sri Lanka, he could not be considered for selection. Bari also stated that since last December, Sohail has assigned no reason for not attending the national camps and
has also not played regularly at the domestic level. However, Sohail did play one match of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and scored a big hundred for LCCA against Hyderabad. Bari has claimed that Sohail had also not been considered for selection since his performances in the series against Australia and Zimbabwe was not upto the mark. The interesting thing according to the sources is that even the Board has been asked to explain whether Sohail was being victimised because of his role in the judicial inquiry looking into the match-fixing and betting allegations against some players. Sohail walked out of the Pakistan team after the first test defeat to Zimbabwe after differences with the selectors, who were not supporting him in dropping some senior players, who Sohail claimed were not cooperating with him and sabotaging his efforts. The fall-out has been that Sohail has even parted ways with the Board Chairman, Khalid Mehmood, who many saw as his main supporter and mentor at the start of the season, when he supported him strongly for the captainship over Rashid Latif. Even though Latif had done a fair job on the difficult tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe, it is no secret that Mehmood went out of his way to convince the council members to support Sohail for the captaincy. But now with Wasim Akram back as captain, obviously the priorities of Mehmood have changed and though he did make a final effort to ensure a patch up between
Sohail and Wasim, it did not work out. In the changed circumstances, sources say, Khalid Mehmood is deeply worried that Sohail and Rashid Latif might go out of their way to prove some players guilty of match-fixing and as a result damage the World Cup campaign.
 
 

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