The wicketkeeper Mohammad Shahzad’s contract was suspended for an unknown time due to breaching the code of conduct of Afghanistan’s Cricket Board (ACB).
As per ACB’s policies, any player travelling out of the country is required to seek the permission of the ACB, but Shahzad has not adhered to this, repetitively, the board said in a statement.
Shahzad has also breached the ACB Code of Conduct previously and was recently called for questioning by the ACB Discipline Committee in relation to a disciplinary matter during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, the statement said.
The statement added that Shahzad did not attend meetings scheduled with the Discipline Committee on 20th and 25th of the last month.
The Discipline Committee will meet after Eid al-Adha holidays to assess the breaches by Mohammad Shahzad and make a decision which will be made public in the near future, the statement said.
This comes as Shahzad was seen attending a training session at a local stadium in Peshawar.
The ACB said in the statement that it has well-equipped training and practice facilities within the country and Afghan players do not require to travel abroad for such purposes.
Back in June, Shahzad retired hurt after suffering a knee injury in Afghanistan’s warm-up fixture against Pakistan.
While the wicket-keeper batsman featured in their opening games against Australia and Sri Lanka, the aggravated injury has ruled him out of participation in the rest of the competition.
Since the 2015 World Cup, Shahzad has been Afghanistan’s second highest run-scorer in one-day internationals with 1843 runs in 55 innings. Ali Khil, his replacement, made his international debut against Ireland last year.
The replacement of a player requires the approval of the Event Technical Committee before the replacement player can be officially added to the squad.
The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 consists of Geoff Allardice (ICC, ETC chairman), Campbell Jamieson (ICC representative), Steve Elworthy (CWC representative), Alan Fordham (host representative), Harsha Bhogle and Kumar Sangakkara (both independent representatives).
