Former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja has opened up on the reports of demoting Pakistan’s white-ball captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan from their central contract category .
Earlier this week, Geo News reported that the duo may lose their Category A of the central contract with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after elimination in the league stage of the T20 World Cup 2024.
Babar and Co. could only win two of their four group games against Canada and Ireland. They lost to a relatively inexperienced team of the USA who were playing their first ICC tournament and then they lost to arch-rivals India.
While talking on a local sports show, Ramiz said withholding salaries or demoting players will not get the team anywhere in terms of success and standard.
“This is beyond me. Cricketers should be paid, simple as that. They have a limited career and PCB has a lot to give to the cricketers,” Raja stated.
“If you decrease or withhold the salary of a workforce then it will result in the workforce leaving the job. This is an incredibly delicate matter that as a punishment you are decreasing or holding back the salary of someone,” he added.
Raja had previously opposed removing Babar from Pakistan’s white-ball captaincy and called such actions “knee-jerk and emotional reactions.” Talking about the possible demotion of players, he called it a knee-jerk reaction that is not going to help the team’s standard.
“As I have said before, this is a knee-jerk reaction and you can not improve the standard by increasing or decreasing the pay of the cricketers.”
- Babar Azam
- Mohammad Rizwan
