World Cup 2019: Mohammad Hafeez denies news of reported groupism in Pakistan team

The Pakistan team is not only having a woeful ICC World Cup 2019, but reports suggesting rampant groupism in the team has come forth making the matters worse for the players, management, and fans involved. The Men in Green have won only one match out of five played with three losses and one rained out. One more loss after this and the team will be out of the tournament for good. However, the most experienced member of the team Mohammad Hafeez has denied that.

Everything unraveled for the team after their loss against India on June 16, when Pakistan went down to their archrivals by 89 runs via DLS method and it was then reported that Sarfaraz Ahmed had taken some players to task in dressing room after the match and Imad Wasim and Mohammad Amir were leading a group against the captain. This was however categorically denied by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Mohammad Hafeez denies rumours of a rift amongst the team

Senior player and ace batsman Mohammad Hafeez played a match-winning knock in Pakistan’s only win in the tournament, which came against hosts England. However, he managed just 9 runs and gave away 11 in the only over he bowled in the crunch match against the Indian team. Being someone whom junior players look up to and who has captained Pakistan in the past, Hafeez refuted every rumour of groupism in the team.

“Whenever we lose, these stories of groupings start. We beat England there were no stories of groupings, we lose to India & these stories of groupings in the squad start. We are one, we are united, we are all Pakistanis, we all care about each other,” Mohammad Hafeez was quoted as saying by GEO.tv.

“All these stories of trouble within the squad are rubbish. The reality is that we simply have not played well enough as a team & all the players need to take responsibility for this,” Hafeez added.

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Pakistan only have four more games in hand and a loss in even one of them will shut the doors for their semi-final qualification. Even after these wins, the Men in Green will depend on results of other teams to make it to the top four.