After backlash, Pakistan Cricket Board posts new promotional video featuring Imran Khan

After facing a severe backlash for leaving out Imran Khan from a promotional video celebrating the country’s cricketing achievements, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has released a rectified version with the 1992 World Cup-winning captain in it, and stated that the prior video excluded some clips due to its duration.

"The PCB has launched a promotional campaign leading up to the Cricket World Cup 2023. One of the videos was uploaded on 14th August 2023. Due to its length, the video was abridged and some important clips were missing. This has been rectified in the complete version of the video,” PCB wrote on its social media platform with the new video.

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The PCB first released a video on August 14 with the hashtag #BeyondJustOneDay, highlighting the contributions of some of their top players and the biggest moments in Pakistan's cricket history, since 1952 when they played their first international game.

The video was then met with severe criticism from some former players, including Wasim Akram, and fans for not including Imran, who is not just a revered figure in Pakistan's cricket history but also served as the country's Prime Minister from August 2018 to April 2022.

Khan's teammate and member of the 1992 World Cup-winning campaign Wasim Akram on Wednesday criticised a PCB's video for omitting the reference to their only ODI World Cup-winning captain.

The 57-year-old Akram said that he got the "shock of his life" when he watched the video and urged the PCB to delete the video and "apologise" for leaving Imran out of it.

"After long flights and hours of transit before reaching Sri Lanka, I got the shock of my life when I watched PCB's short clip on the history of Pakistan cricket minus the great Imran Khan…political differences apart but Imran Khan is an icon of world cricket and developed Pakistan into a strong unit in his time and gave us a pathway…PCB should delete the video and apologise," Akram said in a tweet.

Notably, Imran is widely regarded as the finest cricketer Pakistan has produced and one of the game's greatest all-rounders. He led them to their first global title in 1992 at the MCG.

In 2018, Imran was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, after a two-decade-long political career but was ousted last year after a vote of no-confidence by the parliament.

Indo-Asian News Service