Srinagar: Formet Pakistan cricketer turned coach Mohammad Hafeez has claimed that fitness was kept at backstage during Babar Azam and Mickey Arthur’s tenure in Pakistan cricket team.
Hafeez said that Pakistan players were unfit as per international standards. Speaking on Pakistani sports channel – A Sports – Hafeez has said that the Pakistan players do not have the fitness standard to play international cricket.
Hafeez was recently let go from the position of director of cricket after Pakistan were hammered 4-1 in the New Zealand T20I series.
“When we went to Australia, I told the players to take care of their fitness levels. I also asked the trainer about the fitness of the players. He told me a shocking thing that six months ago captain (Babar Azam) and Director of Cricket (Mickey Arthur) told me to stop checking the players on the fitness parameters and let them play the way they want,” Mohammad Hafeez said on A Sports.
“When the fat levels of the players were checked, the skin fold of all of them was high – for most players it was 1.5 times the limit. They were unfit and some of them couldn’t complete a 2 KM trial run. The decision taken 6 months back overruled the set criteria for fitness. You will suffer defeats if the fitness is like that,” Mohammad Hafeez added on the show.