Back without answers: The curious reinstatement of Rizwan, Imam

 

They were sent home in disgrace, investigated by a cybercrime agency, internal inquiry and then quietly welcomed back. Nobody explained why. Nobody was held to account. And Pakistan cricket moved on as if none of it had happened.

 

By Asher Butt

 

In Pakistani cricket, there is a particular kind of silence that speaks louder than any briefing. It is the silence that follows a storm — not the calm of resolution, but the deliberate quiet of an institution that has decided the most comfortable path forward is to pretend the storm never occurred.

Mohammad Rizwan and Imam-ul-Haq were removed from Pakistan's touring squad in England in August 2026 under circumstances that, at the time, were described with unusual gravity. Rizwan, a former captain and one of Pakistan's most senior cricketers across all formats, and Imam-ul-Haq, a Test opener with an established international career, were not merely rested or rotated. They were sent home mid-series with seven other players and a coaching staff, in what the Pakistan Cricket Board described as action taken for reasons "more than cricket." A national cybercrime agency was reportedly investigating both men in connection with allegations of leaking team information while Imam was facing internal probe for faking an alleged injury. Their phones, according to sources close to the matter, were confiscated by team security personnel in London for several hours. The word "inquiry" was used. The word "investigation" was used. The word "cybercrime" was used.

And then, some weeks later, both players were available for selection again.

No findings were published. No inquiry outcome was announced. No charges were confirmed or refuted. No official explanation accompanied their reinstatement. The PCB, which had chosen to involve a national law enforcement agency in what began as a cricket administration matter, offered no public accounting of what that involvement produced, what it found, or why it concluded — or did not conclude — in the way that it did.

The players simply reappeared, available and apparently cleared to play domestic cricket, in the pool of cricketers from which Pakistan's selectors would pick their squads.

 

What was said and what was not

The PCB, through its adviser Amir Mir, had at the time of the inquiry asked the public not to treat speculative reports from hostile external sources as credible. It emphasized that the process was being handled under standard board regulations and that due consideration would be given to all individuals involved.

That was, in effect, the last substantive communication on the matter.

Due consideration was given. The process was handled. And then it was over — in the sense that both players were reinstated — without anyone inside the PCB's administrative structure explaining what the process had found, whether the original concerns had been addressed, and what standard of proof or procedure had determined that the matter was resolved.

For Rizwan and Imam, the personal cost of this episode is real regardless of its outcome. They were publicly identified with an investigation conducted by a national agency — a designation that, in any profession, carries weight that a quiet reinstatement does not fully erase. A formal acquittal is one thing. A return to availability without any accompanying statement is another. The reputational ambiguity created by the original allegations was never officially resolved in public, even as the practical consequences of those allegations were reversed.

 

The accountability question

The episode raises a question that extends well beyond these two players: what is the PCB's standard for the deployment of serious institutional processes, and who bears responsibility when those processes begin with significant public consequence and end without public explanation?

If the investigation found wrongdoing, the public interest demands that finding be communicated — both to protect the integrity of the game and to give the affected players an opportunity to respond formally to specific charges. If the investigation found no wrongdoing, the public interest equally demands that conclusion be stated clearly — both to restore the players' standing and to examine why the process was initiated in the manner it was.

Neither of these things happened. The inquiry began loudly and ended in silence. The players were implicated in public and reinstated in private. The institution that initiated the process issued no accountability for either its findings or its methods.

PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi, who had defended the mid-series changes as short-term measures rather than permanent exclusions, did not subsequently address what the inquiry had established. Aaqib Javed, who had publicly questioned Imam's injury during the Lord's Test and suggested it would face scrutiny, did not update his public position after the reinstatement. Nobody who spoke loudly about the matter when the players were removed chose to speak at equivalent volume when they were brought back.

 

The pattern behind the silence

Pakistan cricket's recent history is littered with episodes that begin with dramatic institutional action and end without institutional accounting. Coaches are appointed with fanfare and dismissed without explanation. Players are dropped for reasons described as technical and reinstated without those reasons being revisited. Investigations are launched with the gravity of national importance and concluded — or simply abandoned — without the public ever learning what they established.

In this environment, Rizwan and Imam's reinstatement is not surprising. It is, in fact, entirely consistent with how the PCB has managed similar situations: through action followed by silence, through institutional assertion of authority followed by institutional withdrawal from accountability.

What is left behind in each case is a residue — of unanswered questions, of players whose reputations were publicly attached to serious allegations that were never formally resolved, of a cricket-following public that was asked to accept both the drama of the original action and the opacity of its conclusion and the embarrassment country faced in the cricket world.

Rizwan and Imam are available again. The inquiry, whatever it found, is apparently concluded. Pakistan cricket moves on.

The questions do not.

 

Mohammad Rizwan and Imam-ul-Haq were among seven players removed from Pakistan's touring squad in England in August 2026. Both were subsequently reinstated for selection. The PCB or anyone else has not publicly disclosed the outcome of any inquiry related to either player.