The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has surprised everyone by banning the former captains of the Pakistan side, Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan from international cricket for the country.

There were other senior Pakistani cricketers who earned a penalty as well, but none of it was as severe as the one meted out to Yousuf and Younis.

The PCB was acting on a recommendation of the PCB’s enquiry committee which was led by Wasim Bari – PCB’s COO – which had said that the nine successive losses on the abysmal tour of Australia was due to the in-fighting, caused due to these players.

Some of the other players who were penalised are Shoaib Malik and Naved-ul-Hasan Rana, wh were both banned by the PCB for a period of one year, whereas Kamran Akmal and Shahid Afridi were fined Rs.3 million. Kamran’s younger brother, Umar Akmal was fined Rs.2 million for his indiscipline.

Maik and Rana were penalised for significant discipline breaches, while Kamran Akmal was fined for his repeated assertions that he would be a part of the Pakistani playing eleven despite being chucked out by the PCB before the third Test match against Australia. Kamran’s brother, Umar Akmal had then feigned an injury before the start of the game and tried to sit out as well, and is fined Rs. 2 million. Shahid Afridi had tampered the ball in the final ODI against Australia and was banned by the ICC for a couple of games and is now fined Rs. 3 million.

Reactions from Pakistan were mixed, with Zaheer Abbas saying that it does not matter if Pakistan lost the ICC World T20 this year, but the direction was needed in Pakistan cricket and in essence, the player power needed to be culled.

This will also mean that the Pakistani side will go into the ICC World T20 with a relatively new-look side. Blue Square offers 8/1 for Pakistan to defend their title, from 7/1 only a couple of days ago. Both, Australia and South Africa go into the tournament as favourites, with Bet Fred offering 9/2 for an Aussie win, and Blue Square offering 9/2 for South Africa to win their first ever World Cup.

Boylesports offers 11/2 for England to win a World Cup in a format that had invented to curb the dwindling revenues, but it seems highly unlikely that it will happen.