Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, is not willing to accept Younis Khan's resignation as captain of Pakistan and hopes he can change Younis's mind over the next few days. Younis handed in his resignation on Tuesday during the National Assembly's standing committee on sports meeting to look into allegations that Pakistan's losses to New Zealand and Australia were fixed. The charges had been made initially by an Indian newspaper, only for them to be retracted, before MNA Jamshed Dasti, the head of the committee, leveled similar charges and called the hearing.
Butt said that Younis twice gave his resignation, once during the meeting itself and then, after it was turned down, after the meeting when he rushed into Butt's car to hand him the letter again. Both times, however, Butt refused to accept it, instead asking Younis to meet him personally in the hope of getting him to change his mind.
"I didn't accept his resignation during the meeting and he then forced it on me in the car, and I didn't accept it there either," Butt told Cricinfo. "He was very disturbed and perturbed by the whole affair and it is easy to see why. These kind of allegations are serious and without evidence they are damaging."
Butt was insistent that Younis was still the best man for the job. "In the next couple of days I am hoping to meet him. I told him to come and meet me and we can discuss it. I want him to withdraw his decision, I want him to continue. We need him. I don't mind criticism of us, the administration and board, but not the players. They've done well in recent times and I want that to continue."
Some of the speculation surrounding the reasons behind Younis' decision centred on Shahid Afridi's meeting with the chairman in Lahore a few days ago. It has been suggested that the meeting was part of moves to sideline Younis as ODI captain, replacing him with Afridi. Butt rubbished the theories, saying the meeting was held to discuss preparations for the World Twenty20, scheduled to be held in the Caribbean next April.
"Afridi is my Twenty20 captain and there is a Twenty20 World Cup not so long from now in the West Indies," Butt said. "It had nothing to do with anything else. He wanted to meet me to discuss preparations for that tournament and he is the captain, so there is nothing so extraordinary in that."
