Karachi: Pakistan cricket plunged into another crisis with Younis Khan spurning captaincy and planning retirement from one-day cricket after the team’s nightmarish World Cup campaign. Younis was aghast at the way the players were treated after their return from the West Indies where Ireland knocked them out of the event.

Younis confirmed that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf had offered him the captaincy with full powers. “But I told them ‘thank you for the offer but I am not interested, specially after the way the team has been treated since the World Cup exit’,” Younis said Friday.

Visibly upset and angry, Younis said he had still not recovered from the shame and stress of seeing people burning effigies of the players and staging mock burials.

“Losing and winning is part of the game but when your family is not spared and gets threatening calls and people abuse and insult you on returning to the country, then the captaincy is not worth it,” he said.

Younis also said that he was thinking about quitting one-day cricket and concentrating on playing Test matches which he considered the real cricket and challenge. “I love Test cricket, it is the real sport for me. In the next few months, I will inform the board about what I have decided.”

Younis said he was very unhappy at the way the people, former players and media had reacted to the team’s poor performance in the World Cup. “I can understand the disappointment of people. As a Pakistan player, I have always given 200 per cent, but unfortunately I failed in the World Cup like others did. That does not justify the frenzy and misbehaviour we have had to encounter since returning home.”

Younis said he considered self-respect above everything else.

“It was humiliating to see musicians and actors making fun of us and of our services to Pakistan cricket on television. The media is today very powerful in Pakistan and I don’t want to end up having to offer explanations for any poor performance and go tearfully.”

“I am still hurt and upset at the sort of hostile reception we have got since returning from the World Cup,” he said.

“I have always given 100 per cent for my country. But when your family gets threatening calls and our effigies are burnt and our pictures put on donkeys…. Then I don’t want to lead the team in such circumstances.”

He also rubbished reports claiming he had demanded axing of a few players as a pre-condition to taking up the captaincy. “I didn’t make such demands. All the players are like my brothers. I don’t want the captaincy because I am under a lot of mental stress and don’t have the patience to face the sort of reaction we got after the World Cup.”

Younis said he had advised the PCB to make their future decisions carefully and not rush things by acting in haste. “Cricket will go on and we must now just try to learn from the mistakes we made in the World Cup.”

The senior batsman was also very critical of the way the team had been treated in the West Indies after the murder of coach Bob Woolmer in a Kingston hotel. “We were treated as criminals, as if we had murdered Woolmer. People can’t understand the shock we were in after realising that our coach had died. It was one of the worst weeks we had to face in our lives in Kingston after Woolmer’s death,” Younis said.

Younis said the team felt totally let down by their board and revealed that at one stage, he had lost temper and told the Jamaican authorities and police to stop treating the players like murder suspects.

“At one stage I got so angry with the way we were being treated that I told the Jamaican authorities we are international cricketers not criminals,” Younis said. “I told them why are you suspecting us of murdering Woolmer? In him we have lost a father figure.” (Agencies)