Sindh High Court on Thursday upheld a Pakistani decision to revoke permission for former captain Shahid Afridi to play abroad, adjourning until June 16 the hearing of his petition against the Cricket Board.
Afridi went to court after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) punished him for allegedly breaching a code of conduct by announcing his retirement, after he was dumped as one-day captain, and levelling allegations against the Board.
It suspended his central contract, revoked all his no-objection certificates (NOCs) which would have allowed him to play in England and Sri Lanka and served him with a show-cause notice last week.
“The court has adjourned the hearing until June 16 and has upheld the decision of the PCB to revoke NOCs for Shahid Afridi,” PCB lawyer Tafazzul Rizvi told AFP after Board officials were summoned to the court in Karachi.
The slanging match between Afridi and Pakistani managers has rocked the game, still reeling from the aftermath of a spot-fixing scandal which ended in lengthy bans on Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer.
On Tuesday, the Sindh high court ordered the PCB to adjourn a disciplinary committee meeting, before which Afridi was ordered to appear this week, and summoned PCB officials to appear in court on Thursday.
Afridi’s petition was filed after Pakistan coach Waqar Younis and manager Intikhab Alam described him as “immature and unwilling to listen” in tour reports leaked to the media and published in a daily newspaper on Tuesday.
