World Cup Cocktail

Pakistani cricket chiefs launched an investigation Monday into reports that chief selector Moin Khan visited a casino shortly before the team's calamitous World Cup defeat to the West Indies.

Fans, already in despair at Pakistan's dismal start to the tournament, have reacted furiously over claims Khan was seen in a casino in the New Zealand city of Christchurch ahead of Saturday's crushing 150-run defeat to the Windies.

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"We have launched an investigation over the reports that Moin Khan visited a casino, action will be taken if the reports prove true," Shehryar Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), told reporters.

"As per initial reports, Moin Khan went there to have a meal two days before the match against West Indies and a Pakistani couple photographed him and made a video," Khan said.

Saqlain hid his wife during 1999 WC

Former Pakistan spinner Saqlain Mushtaq has revealed that in the 1999 World Cup, he had sneaked his wife into hotels and hid her in the closet when the manager or the coach came knocking.

"At the 1999 World Cup we'd been travelling with our wives and family, enjoying the tournament, but before the semi-final the management said that wives are not allowed. I said to Sana (wife): 'I'm not going to send you home. I'm feeling comfortable. You're going to stay here," Saqlain said.

“I kept her in my room. Whenever the manager and coach came knocking, I told her to go and hide in the cupboard," he said candidly.

He went on to narrate an interesting anecdote when his teammates Mohammad Yousuf and Azhar Mahmood came in one day and after a few minutes starting laughing. They told him that they knew his wife was in the room and that she could come out from the cupboard.

Saqlain said during a Christchurch Test his wife told him that if he loved her he would have to make a fifty.

"So, I got to 50, then up to 70. My wife sent another message: 'If you really, really love me, you have to make hundred.' It was a lot of pressure. I was going to break the record for slowest Test hundred. I was 98 at the end of the next day. Next day, I was on 99 for about 40 minutes, but thanks to Nathan Astle for a ball on the leg side and I got the hundred," he said.

World Cup's highest flyer

No matter how tough things get for the United Arab Emirates players at the cricket World Cup, they at least have one genuine high-flyer in their ranks.

As a flight purser for airline Emirates, UAE batsman Khurram Khan regularly misses net practice because he is 30,000-feet high in the sky.

Khurram, 43, is the oldest player to have scored an ODI century and has picked up a cult following with a Twitter hashtag in his honour #KhurramKhanFacts.

The world's top cricketers can never complain about their travel schedules when they consider Khurram sometimes criss-crosses the globe only hours before taking the field.

“I'm always flying somewhere. I fit in whatever practice I can when I am on land at home,'' Khurram said.

“I have got my roster and I am back to work only two days after we finish at the World Cup, flying to Kuwait and Bahrain. I probably would not still be playing cricket except there are not a lot of young cricketers coming through in my country. We don't get paid much playing cricket, so there is no pressure when we walk out into the middle,'' Khurram laughs.    --Compiled