Ihsanullah reverses decision to retire from all franchise cricket

Pakistan fast bowler Ihsanullah has reversed a decision to retire from all franchise cricket less than 24 hours after announcing it. The former Multan Sultans player said he had taken the decision in “an emotional state of mind”.

“I take back my decision,” Ihsanullah said in a speech to the Geo Super TV channel. “No franchise chose me and the comments of a lot of people sent me over the edge. I will work hard. There are four months before the PSL. The people who did not choose me are the same people who will choose me in the future, I have no plans to retire.”

Ihsanullah, 22, made his first announcement of retirement just hours after the end of the draft for the tenth edition of the PSL, in which he was not sold. At the time, he insisted it was not an emotional decision. “People are selfish. I am boycotting PSL, no one will ever see me in PSL. No one has contacted me even [Ali Tareen, Multan Sultans’ owner] supported my talent, not me personally.”

After breaking through in 2023 with his high pace and wicket-taking ability, Ihsanullah suffered an elbow injury during his first ODI series, at home against New Zealand. But the way it was handled – or not – became the subject of a long-running saga, with his franchise owner Ali Tareen criticizing the PCB for inappropriately supporting the fast bowler, stating that it was the Sultans rather than the PCB who bore the majority of his living expenses while he recovered.

Tareen told Pakinomist that Ihsanullah had contacted him to apologize for the public criticism of him and thanked him again for his support during his rehabilitation. “I feel very sorry for Ihsanullah,” Tareen said. “He comes from a very poor family and when he broke through, he believed he would get out of poverty, but because of the actions of the PCB’s medical staff, he fears he might go back to poverty. The PCBs have effectively washed their hands off him and I was the one who asked the PCB to let him play the recent T20 Champions Cup.None of us can imagine what his state of mind must be.

Tareen said he had assured Ihsanullah that he would keep him involved with Sultans, who have a Grade 2 division, to ensure he has a monthly income while he tries to work his way back to fitness. But he defended his decision to let Ihsanullah go unselected in the draft, saying he did not feel it was possible to pick him in the latest draft because he was not ready to play the high level of cricket that the PSL demands , before April.

Last year, a damning independent report criticized “delays in diagnosing Ihsanullah’s injury and inappropriate prescribing of treatment”, and the PCB’s chief medical officer Dr. Sohail Saleem resigned the same day.

The report stated that Ihsanullah did not have his right elbow pain treated, treated and operated on appropriately, and never received the formal rehabilitation process that his condition required. It also placed partial blame on Ihsanullah for “failure to comply with the prescribed rehabilitation plan”, although it concluded that the plan itself was inadequate. It stated that Ihsanullah’s operation was “hastily planned” and lacked specialist review and pre-operative assessment. It also said the surgeon recommended for the procedure “lacked academics and experience in the field”, calling the choice “inappropriate”.

At the time, it said Ihsanullah’s return to cricket remained a distant prospect. Earlier this month, in an unusually candid appearance on cricket podcast “Relukattay”, Tareen had said he spoke to a world-renowned doctor in Britain about Ihsanullah’s injury. “It’s extremely sad,” he said. “He told us that there was so much scarring from his previous botched surgery thanks to the PCB that his arm would never be completely straight. That no matter what he did, Ihsanullah’s arm would never be completely straight because of the scarring.”

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