Pakistan were docked six points on the World Test Championship (WTC) table while Bangladesh were docked three points. Both teams were penalised for maintaining slow over-rates in the first Test of the series played in Rawalpindi.
Match referee Ranjan Madugalle deemed Pakistan six overs short of the target after adjusting for time allowances. Bangladesh were three overs short. Additionally, players from both teams were fined a percentage of their match fees – Pakistan at 30% and Bangladesh 15%.
According to Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to minimum over-rate offences, players are fined 5% of their match fee for every over their side falls short of the allotted time. Additionally, as per Article 16.11.2 of the WTC playing conditions, a team is penalised one point for each over short.
Pakistan went into the game with an all-pace attack at home for the first Test – only the second time in 28 years – which they lost by ten wickets. Their bowling combination could’ve played a role in the over-rate they maintained for the Test. Bangladesh, on the other hand, had two frontline spinners.
The revised WTC points table now sees Pakistan, second from bottom and only behind West Indies, slip from 22 points to 16 points. They hold on to the eighth position with 22.22 percentage points. Bangladesh, who had briefly gone past South Africa to sixth place after their win, have dropped to seventh after their three-point deduction and now have 21 points. They are on 35 percentage points.
The two captains, Shan Masood and Najmul Hossain Shanto, pleaded guilty to the offences and accepted the sanctions.
Meanwhile, less than a month after becoming the advisor to the PCB chairman on cricket affairs, Waqar Younis’ stint has ended, with the former fast bowler now a mentor for one of the five sides in the new domestic competitions the PCB is introducing this season.
Waqar is joined by Misbah-ul-Haq, Shoaib Malik, Saqlain Mushtaq and Sarfaraz Ahmed as mentors, whose first assignments will be the Champions One-Day Cup, which will run from September 12 to 29 in Faisalabad. The PCB confirmed that Sarfaraz, who is part of the Test squad for the ongoing Bangladesh series, would continue with his playing career.
Waqar was slated to become the board’s cricket supremo, a role created to take the burden of cricketing decisions away from the PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi. He even appeared alongside Naqvi at a press conference in that role, an unveiling of sorts, at Gaddafi Stadium at the time.
Initially the PCB didn’t give a reason for why Waqar is no longer in that role and had become a mentor instead, which is a three-year contract and was, in the PCB’s words, the result of a “transparent and robust recruitment process”. It had been suggested that both parties thought Waqar might be better suited to a team-building role such as this, with more active involvement in the development of a side. The role of the advisor to the chairman is still being advertised.
But at a press conference later in the day in Lahore, Naqvi said Waqar had played a pivotal role in identifying and appointing the other four mentors, before taking on the fifth spot himself. “Waqar Younis assisted us for the last 3-4 weeks,” Naqvi said. “He’s a great name to have, a great cricketer was on board with us. He helped us finalise the other mentors. He spoke to them, did everything. And then he had to handle the fifth team. So in the first 3-4 weeks, in this entire exercise, he spoke to them, convinced them, to get them on board, and now he will handle the fifth team.
