Yasir Arafat accuses Pakistan Cricket of favouritism; says he always felt unwelcoming in the team

The former Pakistan cricketer Yasir Arafat has accused the team management of favouritism. This came after Pakistan’s national team has been stormed with allegations and criticism from a lot of former cricketers. Arafat played 3 Tests, 11 ODIs and 13 T20Is for his country before hanging his boots from international cricket in 2012.

The fast bowler has claimed that the team management, over the years, has fast-tracked certain players and rejected those more talented and deserving of playing for the senior team. Earlier, Shoaib Akhtar had claimed that the top management of Pakistan Cricket is not aggressive in its approach. Notably, Pakistan lost the three-match Test series against England by 1-0 and drew the T20I series.

Recalling the times when he was the part of the Pakistan team, Yasir Arafat, while speaking to Kamran Akmal on his Youtube channel, stated how he felt alone and nobody supported him in the team. “The Pakistan senior team had come back from Australia at the time and there were a lot of changes being made. They had dropped 5-6 players due to the bad performance.

“Even the captaincy, I think, Wasim Akram was doing it (Saeed Anwar was the captain). The atmosphere was such, and the senior players had such an attitude that you would feel that you are unwelcome in the team. It felt like an alien atmosphere where, if you need to perform, you needed to do it all by yourself and you won’t get any support at all,” he said.

I didn’t understand why I was not in their good books, says Yasir Arafat

Pakistan had returned from Australia then after losing the Test series by 3-0. The team management replaced a lot of players after the unsuccessful tour and a lot of youngsters were given a chance. However, as per Yasir Arafat, established players like Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood were replaced by the management to accommodate the inexperienced players due to favouritism.

“As far as Pakistan cricket is concerned, we haven’t had better all-rounders than Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood. But even when they were not there, other cricketers were fast-tracked based on someone’s liking, someone who had played two matches of first-class cricket or not played at all. I didn’t understand why I was not in their good books,” he added.