re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
it was little slow and boring lately....chalo shukar ha...now we will have some fun...thank you pakistani team....
-------------------------cvabn----------------------
No! They are not boring or chokers! They provide you Entertainment with a nasty twist ! :D
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
This is all Bull$hit from ZUlqarnain.
Just a stint toget political asylum at cost of his country. Looser.
I dont think he is going to get asylum.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Sorry to say this but Zulqairnain doesn’t sound very mature or even smart in this interview…another of those rustic kinds that the Pak team is full of.
Lack of Education + Supersized Ego = Lethal combination
It is possible he received threats, but my gut feel is that he has staged the overblown reaction in the hopes of wining asylum to UK. But I could be wrong.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
^^Seriously this talk of asylum does not make sense. Being a cricketer he would have earned more rather than being a refugee.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Another Akmal!
According to sources, team management asked national team’s selectors for replacement of Zualqarnain Haider, following which Adnan Akmal has been given green signal to join Pakistan team in Dubai.
Adnan Akmal was busy in Rawalpidin playing Quaid-e-Azam Trophy tournament. PCB has directed him to immediately report in Lahore
He may be awarded Test cap in first Test match against South Africa to be played in Dubai.
It is worth mentioning that Zulqarnain Haider said he received threatening SMS from unknown sender, asking him to fix Pak-SA matches otherwise he was warned to be ready for dire consequences.
Upon this, he would rather opt to flee to UK where he has also applied for asylum.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
^^Seriously this talk of asylum does not make sense. Being a cricketer he would have earned more rather than being a refugee.
Not really, his place in the national team was never cemented and looks like he is trying to cash in on this match fixing saga. If true, ICC should ban him for life from playing cricket. He has applied for political asylum, amazing.!!!!!
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Pakistani team does not need batting coach (Ijaz Butt), they need someone with good experience of treating Down's Syndrome.
Zulqarnain announces retirement from international cricket
Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider, who reached London yesterday in mysterious way has announced today from playing international cricket through telephonic talk to Geo News.
He said that he is writing to the Pakistan Cricket Board in this regard.
Talking with Geo News, he said that he was receiving threats from an unknown person and thus he decided to leave Dubai immediately and went to London where he is seeking an asylum.
Re: Zulqarnain announces retirement from international cricket
Zulqarnain Haider confirms threats, retires
November 9, 2010
In his first public comments since fleeing from Dubai and arriving in London on Monday, Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider has confirmed that he received threats from unidentified people following his team’s one-wicket win in the fourth ODI against South Africa and was told to get in line for the fifth match. As a result of the threats Haider - who is seeking some sort of protection in the UK - has announced his retirement from cricket.
“The way my situation is right now I am retiring from international cricket,” Haider (24) said. “There is too much pressure on me, I have received threats, my family has received threats.”
Haider outlined his encounter with the person who approached him, without giving too much detail. “When I went out of the hotel to eat dinner once, he came up. He was alone but I felt there were two to three people behind him. I can describe him. He spoke Urdu but I cannot describe the accent accurately. He said you will make lots of money if you join us and help us. If not, then staying in the team could be difficult and we can make things difficult for you. I don’t know why I was approached and others weren’t.”
Speaking to Geo, a leading Pakistani news channel, Haider was guarded about events of the previous 24 hours but seemed to indicate that he had sought some kind of “protection” from British authorities. He is thought to have been detained at Heathrow by immigration authorities for nearly four hours, before he moved to an undisclosed location.
“The fourth ODI, the things I was told to do I didn’t, and the fifth ODI, what they wanted done I didn’t do,” Haider said. “That is why I did what seemed right to me and I came here. I can’t tell what kind of threats I received to the country because my family is still in Pakistan.”
When asked further about the nature of these threats and who they might have come from, Haider was unwilling and unable to reveal much more. “I am not accusing anyone of being a match-fixer. I only got one guy telling me that if you can’t do this or that, there will be problems, or fix the fourth of fifth ODI. I don’t want to say who it is, neither do I know so much about who it is. I have only played two-three ODIs.” Asked specifically if he thought players within the team were involved, he said, “I am not saying they are or are not. Only God knows that. But I did what I thought was better for everyone. I just didn’t want to sell my country, my mother. The country is like your mother and if you sell that you are nothing.”
Haider also confirmed that he took his passport from the team management on the pretext of buying a SIM card for his mobile and left on Monday morning. Questions have been raised by a number of former players and board officials themselves about why he didn’t approach the board first to report the threats, as is required by the anti-corruption code of conduct. "I felt if I told them, it would get worse for me and my family so I thought to come here. I know about British rules as I have been coming here for the last nine to ten years. They protect you.
“If I had told the PCB or players, it would’ve gotten out and then who knows? I don’t feel it would’ve been better to tell anyone or authorities there. If I had told any of the other players, it might have put them in trouble also.”
Though he didn’t confirm that he had sought asylum in the UK, he did strongly indicate that he was seeking some form of protective status. “I cannot say where I am. I am not in a detention centre. Immigration authorities helped me a lot. The British government is such that if you are on the right path, they will protect you. They have rules [as far as asylum is concerned] and you can’t enter until you have given reasons why. Immigration asked me what I would do. According to the rules they said go like this but hire a government lawyer. I don’t have money right now to hire a private one but if this is the cost of walking on the right path, then so be it, I will bear it.”
As the interview went on, Haider became emotional, ending it with a plea that his family - currently in Lahore - be helped and protected. “Help my family somehow. If it can be done, send my family here. For their security. I have my daily wages from the South Africa series and that is it. I will communicate with someone to see if they can help me financially.”
Haider has not yet contacted the Pakistan High Commission in London. “We are not involved. Not to my knowledge. He [Haider] has not approached us as yet,” an official at the High Commission said. When asked if the Pakistan board had approached them, he did not confirm or deny, saying that the “PCB should be handling it.”
ESPNcricinfo understands the PCB discussed various options of dealing with the matter, including contacting the high commission in the UK and asking them to offer Haider protection. This suggestion, however, was overruled. Haider’s family in Lahore said he has not been in touch with them since his arrival in the UK.
http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/current/story/486162.html
Re: Zulqarnain announces retirement from international cricket
seems more like a bahana to get away with something. dont know...
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
pathetic
such a coward he is
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Not really, his place in the national team was never cemented and looks like he is trying to cash in on this match fixing saga. If true, ICC should ban him for life from playing cricket. He has applied for political asylum, amazing.!!!!!
But the way he was playing, I am sure that he would have in the near future. He was one of the Pakistani players who I thought would last for the long term.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Really disappointed with the way some people have responded in this thread. Those who are suspecting his intentions. HAVE SHAME! When have you become GOD and starting to judge a person's intentions ?!? He has made a foolish mistake, no doubt, but that doesn't mean that GOD has given us the authority to guess what is in his heart. I wish non of us have to face such situation in life, only then our bravery can be judged. Not while siting in front of a computer.
What if his intentions were sincere, but due to fear, he made an emotional wrong decision. Then, be ready to be grabbed from your neck by him in front of Allah (swt) on the day of judgement, (for judging his intentions)
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
^ you are over reacting, nobody gave any judgment. people are giving their opinions and that's what forums are for. people are saying what they felt about his "disappearance" and then landing in london, and then applying for asylum. he could have reached police and other authorities in dubai, funny how he flew to dubai knowing he had money to pay hotel rent for only 2 days and then requesting a tv channel "ho sakay to meri family ko bhijwa dain"
and all this stunt and farmaishi program by someone who had not had really outstanding career in cricket, who was once charged for drinking, and who was just 1 day before his disappearance was told to pay fine for coming late as per rules of the board...
actually PCB's concerned officials and this guy zulqarnain should be tried for this stupidity and get ban of life time from representing Pakistan again...
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Zoni nay sahi ki topi mari hay waisay. I feel him though. When offers came my way to represent Pakistan cricket I denied it too and preferred to live in the US (100% jhoot). kon khele ga garmi main woh bhi kamran akmal ki roti surat ke saath. Chup Chap london bhago aur gas station mein izzat se nokri karo!
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Kamran Abbasi’s take:
Zulqarnain’s troubled mind
A week that promised to deliver the right kind of headlines for Pakistan cricket has once more deepened everybody’s sense of bewilderment. Zulqarnain Haider’s covert escape from the international squad and his arrival in England has quickly banished the euphoria of two nail-biting victories over South Africa.
What drove Zulqarnain to this extreme measure isn’t entirely clear but he is certainly a troubled young man. Threats to Pakistan cricketers are not new, and at the very least Zulqarnain’s act will help people outside Pakistan understand some of the pressures that he and his colleagues uniquely face. Pakistan cricketers, like other human beings, aren’t born corrupt. They are products, even victims, of their peculiar environment.
Experienced voices in Pakistan are already condemning Zulqarnain’s behaviour. He should have turned back to Pakistan and his cricket board in the first instance, they say. Perhaps so. But it is equally understandable that he might feel unable to trust the current malfunctioning cricket board, despite the ICC task force’s rather hasty announcement of the PCB’s wonderful progress in combating corruption. Naturally, he would feel safer in exposing his concerns in England than in Pakistan, or even Dubai.
**Whistleblowers in any walk of life face being discredited. They are marginalised, lose their jobs, and may experience personal danger. They are quickly dismissed as attention seekers and scandalmongers. Zulqarnain might turn out to be either of these but for now he deserves understanding. It takes guts, extreme provocation, or both, to walk out on an international career, something you have worked all your life for and dreamed every night about.
**
Zulqarnain might not be the most talented player to represent Pakistan but he has shown plenty of guts and determination on the cricket field. He clearly wants to win. He puts his country first, he says. He has dedicated victories to Imran Khan’s cancer appeal and Pakistan’s flood victims. To me, this is the behaviour of a man whose heart is in the right place, only an extreme cynic would think otherwise.
Where Zulqarnain’s mind is, however, is anybody’s guess. But now that he has set off on this lonely road he needs to fully expose everything that has gone before, whatever the short-term cost to cricket and cricketers in Pakistan and elsewhere. Once we know the full extent of Zulqarnain’s trauma that will be the time to properly judge the man who wanted to be Pakistan’s wicketkeeper.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
Thanks KA for putting things in the RIGHT perspective…
We really don’t know what PRESSURED Zulqarnain…but anyone should agree that NO ONE throws away a life time DREAM just for a stupid british assylum…UNLESS something very very ominous was luring, AT LEAST in Zulqarnain’s mind…
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
due to this, we will be seeing another brother of the notoriously mischievous and juwaree Akmal brothers.
If you guys remember he was mysteriously sent back to home after he made 88 in Edgbaston test this summer. Many of us were totally surprised that none of the doctors has actually ruled him out of the series that time, he only had some finger injury. However Umar Gul who was more injured in the test series was allowed to stay with the team and recover. After he was sent back suddenly immediately after the last day of that test match, he also raised concern over his departure. I think Akmal is one powerful person while in the team or not, he is such a pathetic keeper for many years now, and still PCB was unable to change him. As if the PCB themselves were involved in the process of cheating or betting.
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
I dont think british asylum that important for an upcoming player. Also he has been going to england for many years. I feel there is much deeper things. HE looks very stressed and frightened and seems he don't have confidence in any one around him.
He must be knowing much more than it looks.......
re: Zulqarnain Haider goes missing/ announces retirement/returns back - drama continues
BBC World is reporting that apparently he's saying now that he's willing to come back and play if the PCB invites him back and offers assurances for his and his family's safety. Remarkable turnaround from his announcement of retirement only a day ago.
I'm not sure about the veracity of his statements but why do these guys make such a$$e$ of themselves.