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 he announced it. The former Multan Sultans player said he had made the decision in “an emotional state of mind”.

“I take my decision back,” Ihsanullah said, speaking to TV channel Geo Super. “No franchise picked me, and the comments of a lot of people sent me over the edge. I’m going to work hard. There are four months before the PSL. The people who didn’t select me are the same ones who will select me in the future. I have no plans to retire.”

Ihsanullah, 22, made his initial announcement to retire merely hours after the conclusion of the draft for the tenth edition of the PSL, which he went unsold in. At the time, he insisted it wasn’t an emotional decision. “People are self-serving. I boycott the PSL, no one will ever see me in the PSL. Nobody 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 prowess, Ihsanullah suffered an elbow injury during his first ODI series, at home against New Zealand. However, the manner in which it was treated – or not – became the subject of a protracted saga that saw his franchise’s owner Ali Tareen criticise the PCB for inappropriate support of the fast bowler, and stated it was Sultans rather than the PCB who bore the brunt of his living expenses while he recovered.

Tareen told ESPNcricinfo Ihsanullah had reached out to him to apologise for that public critique of him, and thanked him again for his support during his rehabilitation. “I feel extremely sorry for Ihsanullah,” Tareen said. “He comes from a very poor family and when he broke through, he believed he would come out of poverty, but because of the actions of the PCB’s medical staff, he fears he may have to go back to poverty. The PCB 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 he would keep him involved with Sultans, who have a Grade 2 department side, ensuring he has a monthly income as he attempts to work his way back to fitness. But he defended his decision to let Ihsanullah go unpicked at the draft, saying he did not feel it was possible to pick him in the recent draft because he was not ready to play the high level of cricket, that the PSL requires, by April.

Last year, a damning independent report criticised “delays in the diagnosis of Ihsanullah’s injury and inappropriate prescription of treatment”, and the PCB’s chief medical officer Dr Sohail Saleem quit on the same day.

The report stated that Ihsanullah did not have his right elbow pain treated, addressed and operated on appropriately, and never received the formal rehabilitation process required by his condition. It did also lay partial blame on Ihsanullah for “non-compliance with the prescribed rehabilitation plan”, even as it concluded that the plan itself was inadequate. It stated that Ihsanullah’s surgery was “planned hurriedly”, lacking specialist review and preoperative assessment. It also said that 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 prospect of the distant future. Earlier this month, in an unusually candid appearance on cricket podcast “Relukattay”, Tareen had said he spoke to a world-renowned doctor in the UK about Ihsanullah’s injury. “It’s extremely sad,” he said. “He told us there was so much scarring because of his previously botched surgery thanks to the PCB that his arm will never become perfectly straight. That no matter what he did, Ihsanullah’s arm would never be fully straight because of that scarring.”

Danyal Rasool is ESPNcricinfo’s Pakistan correspondent. @Danny61000