Afridi, Raza, Zaman in dock for womanising

ISLAMABAD, AUGUST 23: All-rounder Shahid Afridi, batsman Hasan Raza and wicketkeeper Atiq-Uz-Zaman are believed to be the three Pakistani ...

ISLAMABAD, AUGUST 23: All-rounder Shahid Afridi, batsman Hasan Raza and wicketkeeper Atiq-Uz-Zaman are believed to be the three Pakistani cricketers at the centre of the girls-in-the-rooms scandal that broke a day before the team left to play a three-nation one-day tournament in Singapore. All three players are likely to be sidelined immediately after the Singapore tour as they are believed to have earned the ire of Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf, media reports here said. But the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said the players would get a fair hearing.

The PCB, which had called an emergency meeting on Sunday to consider the issue, decided to defer action till the team returned from Singapore, the reports said. The meeting had to be put off after a friend of PCB Chairman General Tauqeer Zia lost his son.

Gen Zia said the matter was `delicate’ and would be dealt with carefully. “We can’t destroy the careers of three youngsters on (the basis of) newspaper reports, but at the same time we will not let the players take the PCB for a ride,” he told reporters.

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“The first step is an inquiry and after that we will give the players a full chance to clarify their positions,” PCB director operations Yawar Saeed told reporters at the National Stadium in Karachi.

Saeed also confirmed that Atiq-Uz-Zaman was one the three players reported to be involved in the incident. If the report is true, Zaman has violated the Code of Conduct for the second time because he was given a written warning after he was sent back from the West Indies tour on similar charges, he said. Newspapers named the other two as Shahid Afridi and Hasan Raza. But an Urdu daily said Azhar Mehmood, and not Raza, was involved.

Two of the players were warned by Gen Zia days earlier after being found guilty of `unbecoming conduct’ while touring Kenya with the Pakistan `A’ team. All depends on coach Javed Miandad’s report because he too was staying at the hotel, Saeed said. The news has left Hasan’s family stunned, sources said. Hasan comes from a very poor background and his family had high expectations from him.

Hasan created a sensation in 1996 when he broke into the Pakistan squad as a 14-year-old. He last represented the National team in 1998-99 before earning a recall.

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