A day after Pakistan crumbled to their second straight defeat in the World Cup, former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Najam Sethi came to the team’s defense, placing the blame on media and public pressure.
“No international team plays under the kind of tension our team plays in owing to media and public pressure,” Sethi said Sunday.
Admitting the team’s performance has been poor till now, with the 1992 champions at the bottom of Pool B after losing both matches against West Indies and India, the former PCB chairman said, “We admit the team’s performance has been disappointing, but just ponder over your reactions and how they affect the team’s motivation.”
“Under this pressure, no team can play,” the former PCB chairman said in an apparent reference to mock funerals and protests held across the country to demonstrate frustration with the national side.
Residents of Multan organised a symbolic funeral procession on Saturday, replete with a coffin with several cricket bats placed over it, directing their anger at the national team after a poor start to the tournament that has also seen it defeated by arch-rivals India.
Elsewhere in the country, disappointed fans staged their own protests, some burning effigies of captain Misbahul Haq and Shahid Afridi.
However, shifting blame for the team’s back-to-back defeat on the PCB chairman himself, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan alleged Sethi was made the chairman of the cricket board as a ‘gift’.