October 27, 2016 by admin

No celebratory push-ups, PCB tells its players

Islamabad, A ruling party lawmaker today criticised Pakistani cricketers for denting the country’s image by doing push-ups on the field after winning a match, prompting the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to discontinue the practice.
Pakistan Muslim League (N) senator Rana Afzal Khan raised the issue during the meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on sports. According to reports, Khan said the players should perform “nafl prayers or do sajdas” rather than push-ups. He said cricket was “a gentleman’s game” and doing push-ups to celebrate victory wasn’t in tune with the spirit of the game. “Push-up celebration promotes a negative image of Pakistan and it needs to be revisited,” Khan said.
PCB chairman Najam Sethi assured the lawmaker and the committee that the players would no longer celebrate victories with push-ups. “It only happened during the England tour and won’t happen again,” Sethi said. Push-ups became a popular mode of celebrating personal feats among the Pakistan players during their tour of England following their training camp with the Pakistan Army.
Push-ups as celebration were first done by skipper Misbah-ul-Haq after he completed a century in a Test match against England in July. After that, the entire Pakistani team did the same after their Test win at Lord’s.