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PTV
cancelled his contract stating that "We are a national network and we
have certain codes of conduct on what can and cannot be said on air. By
talking about ball-tampering and claiming that every successful
Pakistani bowler had 'made' the ball, he was damaging national pride,
and that is against our policy. So we dropped him.
In the 1980s era before
Shane Warne, when leg-spin bowling was cricket's most mystical art, he
was its finest exponent on the world stage.
His best performance came
when he took 9-56 in an innings against England in his home city of
Lahore in 1987.
The Pakistan Cricket Board
tweeted: "PCB is shocked at the news of 'maestro' Abdul Qadir's passing
and has offered its deepest condolences to his family and friends."
Qadir's former Pakistan team-mate and ex-skipper
Wasim Akram added on Twitter
"They called him the
magician for many reasons but when he looked me in the eyes and told me
I was going to play for Pakistan for the next 20 years, I believed him.
"A magician, absolutely. A
leg-spinner and a trailblazer of his time. You will be missed Abdul
Qadir, but never forgotten."
Prime Minister Imran Khan called him "a genius, one of the greatest leg
spinners of all time", adding that "Qadir's bowling statistics do not do
justice to his genius". |
