Wahab Riaz issues detailed statement over his sacking from PCB

Reacting to his removal from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) selection committee, former Pakistan pacer Wahab Riaz has asserted that he did not “want to be part of the blame games.”

Riaz was removed from the PCB selection committee while he was also sacked from the position as senior team manager weeks after Pakistan were eliminated from the T20 World Cup 2024.

“My time serving as a member of selection committee for PCB comes to an end. I just want people to know that I have served the game I love with faith and sincerity and have given 100 percent for the betterment of Pakistan cricket,” he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

The former pacer reiterated that selection committee consisted of seven people including him and that everyone’s vote carried equal weight, an apparent rebuttal to the reports that he exerted pressure on the PCB selection committee.

“It has been an honour to serve as part of the selection panel. To make collaborative decisions as part of the seven man panel to select the national team was a privilege – everyone’s vote carried equal weight, we made selection decisions as a team and shared the responsibility of that process equally. It was an honour to contribute my part to that,” Wahab Riaz said.

While his statement, shared on X, had gratitude for selection committee members and coaches of Pakistan cricket team, the captioned of his post caught the attention of social media users.

“There is a lot I can say but I don’t want to be part of the blame games,” he wrote in the caption of his post.

Earlier, sources said that Wahab Riaz was asked by a selection committee member to accept responsibility for Pakistan’s heartbreaking defeats in the recently concluded T20 World Cup 2024.

However, they said, the former pacer was sacked from his posts after he refused to take responsibility for the team’s dismal performance.

A day earlier, Riaz and Abdul Razzaq were axed from the seven-member selection committee of the Pakistan Cricket Board.

The reshuffle in the selection committee came weeks after Pakistan’s early exit from the recently concluded T20 World Cup 2024.

Sources had said that a new selection committee will be announced in the coming days by PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who had hinted at a ‘major surgery’ in the setup after Pakistan lost two of their opening games in the T20 World Cup 2024.