Sethi backtracks on `ban on push-up celebrations` claims

Karachi [Pakistan], Oct.27 (ANI): A few hours after assuring the National Assembly Committee that the Pakistan cricket team had been barred from performing push-ups as a part of their celebration after winning matches, PCB Executive Committee Chairman Najam Sethi has clarified that there is no ban on performing celebratory press-ups. Backtracking on his words, Sethi further insisted that the players should in fact do 100 pushups when they strike a century, the Express Tribune has reported. "Oh for God's sake, there is no ban on pushups! In fact, I think, players should do 100 pushups when they score a century!! ," Sethi said on his micro blogging website Twitter. Sethi further went on to ask the media to stop politicising the country's national cricket team before appreciating the Pakistan Army for providing fitness training facilities to the PCB. "Sajda/pushups etc done @ discretion of players. PCB highly appreciates fitness training facilities of PakArmy, utilised thrice in 6 yrs," he tweeted. Earlier, Rana Afzal, a member of National Assembly, raised questions during a meeting of the Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee as to why players remain silent over defeat and do push-ups on victory "Who were Misbah-ul-Haq and other players giving a message to by doing push-ups?" questioned Afzal before asking players to perform nafl prayers or sajdas rather than push-ups. Following his statement, PCB official Sethi had reportedly assured that players would no longer celebrate victories with push-ups as they had been banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to do the same. Test skipper Mibah-ul-Haq, along with other players, performed several press-ups following a historic win over England in the opening Test of the four-match series at Lord's. Revealing as to why the entire team did push-ups after the historic 75-run win, Misbah had said that it was their way of acknowledging the contribution and the hard work that the army trainers had put in during the country's preparation for the tour. ODI skipper Azhar Ali also followed in the footsteps of Misbah as he did press-ups on hitting triple century against West Indies in the opening Test.(ANI)