PCB posts full video of CWC23 promotional campaign featuring Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Wednesday put out the full version of their promotional campaign leading up to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India from October 5 onwards, with the new video featuring the country's 1992 World Cup winning skipper Imran Khan, who was not visible in the previous video. The campaign video was previously uploaded on August 14, which also marked the country's Independence Day.

The absence of Imran, also the former Pakistan Prime Minister was criticised by Pakistani fans, who accused PCB of neglecting the former skipper's contribution to Pakistani cricket due to politics.

Posting the new video, PCB clarified that the campaign video previously uploaded on August 14 was abridged due to its length and some important clips were missing. "The PCB has launched a promotional campaign leading up to the CWC 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," tweeted PCB.

The new video features clear, noticeable frames of Imran celebrating the World Cup win with his teammates and holding the WC trophy. Notably, Pakistan's legendary pacer Wasim Akram on Wednesday had criticised the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for neglecting the contribution of former captain Imran Khan in the country's cricketing history in their recently posted video.

After reaching Sri Lanka, the former Pakistan pacer took to his social media handle and asked PCB to delete the video and apologise to the "cricket legend" and the former Prime Minister of the country.

"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," the former Pakistani pacer wrote.

Imran Khan has played 88 Test matches for Pakistan where he scored 3,807 runs with six centuries and 18 fifties and took 362 wickets.

He also featured in 175 ODI matches and scored 3,709 runs with one century and 19 fifties and took 182 scalps with an average of 26.61. He is considered one of the best all-rounders of all time in cricket history. Imran captained the side in 48 Test matches which included 14 wins, 8 losses and 26 draws. In 139 ODIs as a skipper, He won 77, lost 57 and played one tie. He also led Pakistan to win in 1992 Cricket World Cup.