Home Cricket Facts PCB tagged as real villain as Ramiz Raja defends Babar Azam after Pakistan’s early exit from T20 World Cup

PCB tagged as real villain as Ramiz Raja defends Babar Azam after Pakistan’s early exit from T20 World Cup

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PCB tagged as real villain as Ramiz Raja defends Babar Azam after Pakistan’s early exit from T20 World Cup


Former ODI World Cup winning batsman Ramiz Raja criticized the Pakistan team and the Pakistan Cricket Board for ruining the team in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024.

Pakistan’s exit from the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 in the United States and West Indies was confirmed yesterday after the United States and Ireland exited Group A. Both teams received one point each and that was all the co-hosts needed to qualify for the Super 8. The Pakistani team, which reached the semi-final and final of the previous two editions, will not even be there in the second round.

The Men in Green led by Babar Azam had been runners-up in the 2022 edition in Australia despite being in a similar situation to this time. Back then luck was in their favor, but this time luck favored the team that really deserved to go through. The United States will be joined by Group A winners India, along with South Africa, Australia, Afghanistan and the West Indies.

What did Ramiz Raja say about PCB team and Pakistan?

While speaking in his latest YouTube video, Ramiz Raja criticized the PCB management led by Mohsin Naqvi for tormenting the team with excessive experimentation. Raja used an Urdu reference, stating that PCB has turned the team into a mixture of different things at once, just like a pickle is made.

“Aapne choon-choon ka murabba bana diya hai iss team ko (you have turned this team into a mixture of various things),” Raja said.

The 1992 World Cup winner then criticized the PCB for calling up internationally retired players like all-rounder Imad Wasim and seamer Mohammad Amir. Ramiz Raja claimed that by doing so, the board sacked some talented players and brought back players who quit the national set-up after saying things about the captain.

“You brought in old and retired players to somehow save your face in the T20 World Cup… (you) let some of the good talents slip away just because this is a World Cup and it requires experience, we have to bring back the retired players, even if they have complained about the captain,” Raja added.

Raja claims that something similar had happened at the 2003 CWC.

Ramiz Raja later narrated that something similar happened during the 2003 Cricket World Cup, when the team gathered superstars but lost dramatically. In that edition, Pakistan were eliminated from the group stage when Raja admitted that they were a team full of aging superstars who simply could no longer work their magic.

Raja believes something similar happened to the team in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024.

“The team doesn’t work that way; we’ve tried it before. I think it was the 2003 World Cup. We put together all the superstars in that team thinking the experience would be useful. But those were aging stars, and Pakistan couldn’t “They also beat us hard there,” concluded Ramiz Raja.