Shoaib Akhtar would have been banned if not for Jagmohan Dalmiya's help, reveals Tauqir Zia
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Former PCB president Tauqir Zia has revealed that had it not been Jagmohan Dalmiya's support in 2000-01, Shoaib Akhtar, who had a medical flaw in his arms, would have been banned then only. During that time, other ICC members were insisting that Akhtar's bowling action was illegal.
In 1999, a nine-man panel by the ICC found out a slight straightening of the arm after studying video evidence and reached their conclusions that Akhtar will be banned for a month to remodel his bowling action. That surprised Akhtar who said that he was "totally shocked" by the same but he found great support from the then ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya who was an influential voice in cricket back then.
"Jagmohan, who had been president of the ICC and was an influential voice, supported us a lot in the Shoaib Akhtar bowling action case. He took a stand for us despite the ICC members insisting that Akhtar's bowling action was illegal," Lt General (retd) Tauqir Zia, who headed the PCB from 1999 to 2003, said, reported PTI.
"But due to the stance taken by Dalmiya and myself the ICC eventually conceded that Akhtar had a medical flaw in his bowling arm since birth which gave him hyper elbow extension and he was allowed to play on," he added.
The post-2003 exodus saw Pakistan cleaning up many players from the set-up, with Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Saeed Anwar playing their last games in the tournament. Wasim Bari, who was the chief selector then, had also dropped the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Inzamam-ul-Haq from the team so that a new outfit could be built with Rashid Latif taking over the charge as skipper. Zia gave a sneak-peak to things that happened during that time.
"After the World Cup, I was very disappointed with the way the players had performed because it was the best possible side we could have picked for the World Cup. I was hearing about these groupings and differences within the team even before the tournament and I suspected some of them under-performed because of their conflicts," he said.
"I had wanted to make Wasim captain for the World Cup but many people in the board opposed this and even the ICC had its reservations because of the fixing inquiry reports. I told him now is the time to free Pakistan cricket of Wasim, Waqar, Saeed and some others. We then made Rashid Latif the captain and asked him to build a new team," Zia added.
