Well the knives are out as expected and the PCB chairman must take some flak for our team’s worst ever performance in a world cup
ISLAMABAD, March 18:The Pakistan cricket team’s dismal performance and ouster from the World Cup at the hands of Ireland has shocked the nation and drawn criticism at home.
Ireland clinched a sensational three-wicket victory over Pakistan to send the former champions crashing out of the World Cup at Sabina Park, Jamaica, on Saturday.
Pakistan Cricket Board chief Nasim Ashraf will likely be the first head to roll when he faces a senate standing committee next week.
**“We will ask for his (Ashraf’s) resignation in the meeting which is due to take place before March 28,” Senator Mohammad Enver Baig, a member of the senate standing committee on culture, sports, youth affairs and tourism said. **
**“You lost miserably to a country like Ireland. There is nothing to compensate and the chairman must resign and go back to the United States,” Baig said. **
**“The way the team has lost is the most disgraceful performance since the World Cup started. The entire nation is shocked.” **
Baig said Ashraf had no experience to head the Board and his “one man show” type of management had resulted in the “shameful defeat.”
**“He is a crony of (President) Pervez Musharraf and the way he (Musharraf) is running the country, the cricket board is also being run in same manner. It is a one-man rule everywhere,” Baig said. **
Former cricketing great, paceman Sarfraz Nawaz, said the shock was “unbearable” for him.
“I am speaking with deep pain and this shock is becoming unbearable for me,” Nawaz said.
“The captain, coach and the entire team should be held accountable,” he said.
Nawaz demanded that those responsible for defeat must be “fired”.
He said that during the match with Ireland “it seemed that the umpires also wanted that Pakistan should win, but the body language of the team reflected that they wanted to lose.”
In the central Pakistani city of Multan - skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq’s home town - angry youths held a protest rally, chanted slogans against the Pakistan squad and demanded that police arrest them.
“Death to Bob Woolmer (the coach), death to Inzamam, death to Nasim Ashraf - police should arrest them”, the mob shouted.
The Irish victory handed Pakistan their second straight defeat in the competition, following their 54-run loss to hosts West Indies last Tuesday.
The win also provisionally puts Ireland in the lead of Group D, with three points - one more than West Indies and two ahead of Zimbabwe (both have a match in hand) - leaving Pakistan at the bottom of the table with no points.
http://worldcup.indiatimes.com/Pakistans_ouster_draws_criticism_at_home/articleshow/1775817.cms
