KARACHI, Jan 13: Estranged Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf, who recently signed up to the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL), has slammed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for their subservience to the Indian cricket board, particularly in their ongoing policy of life bans on ICL players.

Some hope had emerged for Pakistan players involved with the ICL to have their bans lifted after PCB Director General Javed Miandad openly questioned the rationale of the ban.

He called on all cricket boards to resolve the issue and restore normalcy, especially in Pakistan, which has lost several cricketers to the ICL.

“I just say the Pakistan board should take its own independent decision. It should not tow the line of the Indians,” Yousuf said in a TV interview on Monday night. “What have they given us? They even refused to tour the country recently.

“There is no such ruling from the ICC on ICL players. Tell me are we committing some crime going to play in the league? I say there is nothing to stop the board from lifting the ban on us if it wants to. Javed Miandad is now director general and he should keep his word.”

Yousuf, for the second time in as many months, also launched a stinging attack on the current Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik and the selectors for not treating him with enough respect.

The veteran batsman was never considered for the captaincy at any stage and was omitted from Pakistan’s Twenty20 plans. He again called into question Malik’s qualifications for the captaincy.

Yousuf, who is banned from playing in Pakistan because of his ICL links, said Malik’s appointment in 2007 over other senior players was hugely unfair.

“Tell me on what grounds did they decide I was not fit for Twenty20 cricket? What was the criterion for deciding this?” Yousuf said. “Tell me how did Shoaib Malik deserve to be the captain? It is perhaps for the first time in Pakistan cricket that a player who is not a certain choice in the Test and one-day team has been made captain.”

Ironically, Yousuf, who had played 79 Tests and 269 One-day Internationals, is currently ranked No 2 in the ICC Test rankings despite being ineligible to play international cricket and despite Pakistan not playing a single Test last year.

Yousuf, who set a world record for most Test runs in a calendar year in 2006, said he still wanted to play for Pakistan but did not regret his decision to join the ICL.

“The way they dropped me from the Twenty20 team in 2007 without giving any reason or criteria for selecting players, I was hurt and disappointed,” he added.

He admitted he had left a training camp in Karachi in protest before the Twenty20 World Championship in 2007 after learning Malik did not want him.

“After so many years of service to Pakistan cricket I could not accept the humiliation and packed my bags and left camp,” he said.—Agencies