Afridi, Umar’s fitness found below optimal level
September 23, 2014
LAHORE: Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal, Abdur Rehman and Raza Hasan are the four big names among the Pakistan players found to be below their optimum level of fitness by the PCB.
Fall of fitness levels will cost them 25% of their monthly retainer docked for four months, starting with August's fee. At the end of the four-month period, they can have their fitness reassessed.
The PCB had attached greater importance to fitness in its new contracts handed out to the players, and had said earlier this month that it was mulling handing out fines to players who failed to keep the fitness levels prescribed to them by the National Cricket Academy during a month-long camp in Lahore in May-June.
An assessment of 28 players' fitness was carried out between September 6 and 8. Three players had failed to report for that evaluation due to personal reasons.
Among them was Afridi, but he has since had the assessment. Wahab Riaz and Nasir Jamshed are yet to do so and, in their cases, it will have to wait until they are back from Lahore Lions' Champions League T20 campaign in India.
Five players, meanwhile, were handed out bonuses for maintaining peak fitness. Shan Masood and Umar Amin will get a bonus of 17.5%, while Misbah-ul-Haq, Ahmed Shehzad and Bilawal Bhatti will get 10% apiece.
