'Can't Even Think of Leaving Pakistan': Sarfaraz Ahmed Rubbishes Report of UK Move

Former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed has slammed the reports of him moving out of Pakistan and migrating to the United Kingdom. Sarfaraz has not been at his best in the recent outings where he got the opportunity to play in Test cricket. The reports of him leaving Pakistan and migrating to the UK went viral to which Sarfaraz gave an interview to a Pakistan media outlet and denied the rumours strongly.

“I can’t even think of leaving Pakistan. Confirm before running such fabricated news,” Sarfaraz Ahmed emphasised during the interview with Samaa Digital.

“Sad to see such news.”

Meanwhile, Sarfaraz last played for Pakistan in the first Test on the Australia tour. After his poor performance in series opener, Pakistan decided to drop him and include Mohammad Rizwan in the playing XI for the last two games.

“We think Rizwan is ready and we can give Sarfaraz a little bit of a break to recoup and come back,” skipper Shan Masood told reporters.

“It’s more of a tactical decision in terms of the conditions and what we can get out of each player,” he added.

Coming back to cricketing matters, the Karachi-born player has bagged a total of 3031 runs in 95 Test innings for Pakistan so far. Sarfaraz has 2315 runs in 117 ODIs to date.

Meanwhile, Pakistan cricket chief Zaka Ashraf resigned on Friday citing lack of powers to administer the board, meaning a fourth change will come into force in 13 months.

A ten-man management committee took over the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after former captain Ramiz Raja was sacked as chairman in December 2022.

In June last year, Ashraf was appointed as committee’s head, replacing Najam Sethi, and was given the task of organising an election for the PCB chairman before February 4 this year.

Ashraf left the post after a management committee meeting in Lahore on Friday.

“We can’t work with our hands tied, so I am resigning from the post,” Ashraf told local media. “I wanted to do work for the betterment of cricket in Pakistan.”

Local media reported that Ashraf was allowed to manage only day-to-day affairs by the Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee — which looks after the affairs of sports in Pakistan.