Sikandar Raza has tried to draw the heat away from Shaheen Shah Afridi after a police note claimed the pair “forcefully escorted” unapproved guests up to Raza’s hotel room during the Pakistan Super League at the weekend.
A letter from Punjab Police to PSL chief executive Salman Naseer alleged that Afridi and Raza ignored security staff, the tournament’s anti-corruption officer and Naseer himself before leading several people into the players’ area late on Saturday. It even put the length of the visit at “about three hours”.
Raza, speaking on Sunday night, painted a very different picture.
“Shaheen didn’t force anyone,” Raza said. “My friends and family had come, and at my request, Shaheen helped them [come up to my room]. If these were the SOPs [that visitors weren’t allowed into our rooms], I wasn’t aware, and to some extent, Shaheen wasn’t aware either. The culprit here is me, not Shaheen. He went down on my request, because it was my close family and friends; I didn’t want to meet them in the business centre. We sat upstairs for 40 minutes.”
Those visitors, he stressed, were hardly gate-crashers. “We [the visitors and he] have been friends for 19 years,” Raza said. “My wife and kids will also come to see me. Please don’t forget that my family and relatives live here [and] I don’t get to see [them] all year. Shaheen merely went down on my request. We requested a few members of the PCB, and what happened after that we’ll look into it. But it was my call, not Shaheen’s, and I know he didn’t forcefully escort anyone because I was in the lift with him, too.”
Inside the Lahore Qalandars camp, sources broadly back Raza’s timeline. They accept that visitors went upstairs but reject any suggestion security was muscled aside. One official, speaking off the record, called the idea of a “forced entry” a stretch: “Hotel security opened the lift, nobody was shoved.”
The PCB’s head of media, Umar Farooq, kept the board’s response measured for now: “We are aware of an incident involving two Lahore Qalandars players, and are in communication with the PSL over the matter.”
So far there is no formal statement from either the league or the board, yet the police letter urges tournament bosses to make sure the scene is not repeated. With the play-offs approaching, that is a distraction no side really needs.
For Raza, though, the immediate priority seems simpler—clear Afridi’s name and, if necessary, cop the consequences himself. Whether the authorities accept that version, and whether any sanctions follow, will become clearer in the next day or two.
