Rana, Malik get one-year bans, Younis and Yousuf axed from teams

[Midge]

The PCB has struck against its players with a venom unseen in recent memory, carrying out the deepest cull of a senior cricket team in many years and banning and fining seven of its top players after the side's disastrous, winless tour of Australia. It effectively banned Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf from playing for Pakistan in any format, while handing out one-year bans to Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. Shahid Afridi and the Akmal brothers were fined Rs2-3 million [$24,000-35,000] for various misdemeanours and put on six-month probations.

Full story at:
http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/con...ry/451392.html

Quite amazing I thought they would have done everything they could have done to keep Mohammad Yousuf

[Midge]

To summarise as the full article may be a bit long.

"Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan, keeping in view their infighting which resulted in bringing down the whole team, their attitude has a trickledown effect which is a bad influence for the whole team should not be part of national team in any format," the board said in its statement issued on Wednesday.

Not sure exactly what Shoaib Malik or Rana have done.

In contrast, the cases of Akmal brothers and Shahid Afridi are straightforward. The brothers were fined for their behavior in the aftermath of the Sydney Test; Kamran was dropped by the board but insisted publicly he would be selected in the run-up to the third Test. Younger brother Umar was alleged to have feigned an injury to not play the Test in protest, though he did eventually play. Kamran has been fined Rs 3 million, Umar Rs 2 million and the pair are on probation.

Afridi's fine is for chewing on the ball

[Donsteppa]

I'm 50/50 on whether that second test was match fixing or just utterly inept. Not surprised that the board has given them a major kicking.

[FredDagg1979]

Expect them all to be reinstated on appeal. That seems to be how it works in Pakistan cricket.