A Pakistani cricketer is convinced a ghost shook the bed in his Christchurch hotel room and was so shaken he insisted on switching rooms.
All-rounder Haris Sohail , 26, is touring with the Pakistan side for warm-up matches ahead of next month’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand and Australia.
Pakistan team manager Naveed Akram Cheema said Sohail woke up in the night, scared there was a “supernatural presence” in his room at the Rydges Latimer Christchurch, after feeling the bed move.
He rang one of the coaching staff, who arrived to find the player “visibly shaken”, Cheema said. Sohail slept that night in the coach’s room, before moving to another.
Team management tried to convince Sohail there was no ghostly presence, but to no avail, Cheema said.
“He had a fever,” he said.
“We think it was the fever that caused it [but] the player still believes his bed was shaken by something and it was a supernatural something.”
Sohail had been examined by the team doctor and found to be in good health, Cheema said.
“He’s OK and he’s concentrating on cricket like he should be.”
No overnight earthquakes have been recorded in Christchurch since the Pakistan squad arrived in the city.
Sohail, a left-arm spinner and middle-order batsman, did not play in his side’s first warm-up match, a loss to the New Zealand President’s XI in Lincoln on Sunday, but played in the second game against the same opposition today, scoring six runs.
Sohail has played nine one-day international matches and three Twenty20 internationals for Pakistan.
On Sunday he tweeted “ALLAH always answers your duas”. A dua is a form of Muslim prayer.
A follower tweeted back: “@HarrisSohail89 it’s nice to hear that you recovered from that incident in New Zealand. May Allah protect you.”
