It has not been even two months since Wahab Riaz was appointed Chief Selector, and he has already thrown Haris Rauf and Shanawaz Dahani under the bus by indicating that they are not committed to representing the Pakistan cricket team or not focusing on cricket. Is this the right step from the chief selector Wahab Riaz?
Wahab Riaz’s comments on Shahnawaz Dahani
Wahab Riaz has now chosen to lambast Shahnawaz Dahani in the media. Riaz has now claimed that Dahani has been inactive during tours when he was part of the squad.
He further revealed during an interview that while there was discussion on including Dahani for the Australian tour, but was not considered as there were complaints against him about his attitude and behavior by various coaches. Furthermore, the complaints also indicated Dahani’s reluctance to bowl in the nets and to evade responsibility.
Interestingly, these comments by Riaz have come after Dahani had taken a hat trick for the SNGPL side during the President’s Trophy, which is a first-class tournament featuring departmental cricket teams. Soon, after the hattrick, a lot of questions were asked about why Dahani had not been considered for the Australia tour.
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Wahab Riaz’s statement on Haris Rauf
Earlier last month, during his first press conference after being appointed as the Chief Selector, Riaz announced the Pakistani Test squad for the Australia series, but the focus of the press conference soon shifted on Haris Rauf not being selected when Wahab Riaz claimed that while they got consent from Haris Rauf to play Test cricket for Pakistan, but had changed his mind the night before and opted to pull out sighting workload management issues.
Later, it was indicated that Rauf preferred to give priority to the Big Bash League (BBL), where he represents the Melbourne Stars. PCB later tried to delay giving out NOC to players featuring in the BBL, making sure that the players first represented their local domestic sides in the ongoing National T20.
Two weeks later, Wahab Riaz defended giving the NOC to Rauf by stating that PCB wants Rauf to remain in optimal form for the T20 series in New Zealand.
PR at the expense of players
Wahab Riaz recently took on an administrative role in sports as the Sports Minister of Punjab. Nevertheless, it appeared that Riaz’s primary focus was on sharing videos of himself on social media while performing his duties, a common strategy employed by many individuals seeking to enhance their positive public relations image.
It appears that, in his role as PCB’s Chief Selector, Riaz is once again prioritizing his own public relations agenda by publicly criticizing players, instead of addressing these matters privately without the need to disclose everything to the public.
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