A ruling party lawmaker on Wednesday criticised Pakistani cricketers for promoting a negative image of the country by doing push-ups on field after a match win, prompting the cricket board to discontinue such practice.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senator Rana Afzal Khan raised the issue during meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Sports. The Express Tribune reported that Khan said the players should perform “nafl prayers or do sajdas” rather than push-ups.

He said cricket is “a gentleman’s game” and the act of doing push-ups does not reflect the calibre of the sport. “Push-up celebration promotes a negative image of Pakistan and needs to be revisited,” Khan said.

ICC and PCB offical Najam Sethi did take to Twitter to clarify that there was no such ‘ban’.

But Twitter went nuts over these comments made by the Pakistan government. 

With PTI inputs